


Black and White

by Marzipan77



Category: NCIS
Genre: Conspiracy, Dark, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e09 Frame-Up, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, okay definitely AU, probably AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 43,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzipan77/pseuds/Marzipan77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slightly AU tag for the episode Frame-Up. Tony's dealing - dealing with the fact that his new Director turned him over to the not so tender mercies of the FBI. Dealing with the stink surrounding the whole mess with Chip Sterling. Dealing with Sacks' anger and antagonism. He's dealing - for now - but he knows it's not going to last.</p>
<p>Tony's mind likes to reduce things to black and white. Wrong and right. Villain and hero. Figuring out who is on which side isn't always easy. But, then again, he's not as dumb as they all think he is. And he's done playing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not a friendly story to some characters, but no bashing. Just my take on the reasons for some of Shepard's decisions and actions. Firmly in Tony's camp, as always.

It was all catching up with Tony. He could feel it. It was like he was standing on a train platform, checking his watch, waiting for the 8:05 from Newark instead of in the doorway to Abby's lab. He could feel the same change in the air, the pressure building up behind him, dangerous and quick and with nowhere he could go to avoid the hot rush of air, the noise, and the squealing of the iron wheels on the track. He was hoping to avoid this – at least until he'd gotten home. Locked himself behind the security door of his apartment and dealt with all the fear, the rage, the pain, the betrayal where no one could see. Just like coming in from an undercover job. 

The heady relief of being out of the FBI's cell, away from the criminal welcoming committee, Sacks' venom, and the FBI's own brand of retaliation against a 'fellow Fed gone bad' was gone, leaving Tony with that strange sense of distance, of being outside the warm bubble of the familiar and tied up in his own head.

Too much. Too late. Tony had had one foot aimed at the elevator, his mind on his escape from the team's well-meaning camaraderie when Gibbs had tossed the trial transcript down and bolted for the stairs. It had only taken one glance at Chip's mustached face on the stand staring from the pages to send Tony rushing after him, chasing his own demons.  
The rest of them had followed. Never pausing to ask questions, never hesitating to pull their weapons when they saw Gibbs' gun in his hand, they'd followed Gibbs' lead as always. They had no idea that Tony was off-script. Running his own play. That the simple, jovial, loyal Senior Field Agent had left the building.

Fortunately for the mentally unhinged, vindictive, duct-taped lab assistant, Abby had Chip wrapped up like a turkey all ready for the oven before anyone could get their hands on him. Anyone being Gibbs. Or Tony.

Tony stayed in the doorway, letting the rest of Team Gibbs, plus Ducky and the new Director, swarm past him to either console Abby, check out the squealing perp, or stand in the nucleus and admire the destruction the two had managed to create around them. Tony's gaze flicked from here to there to there, the pressure inside him building, building, until a high-pitched squealing, only audible to him, began to wail, like a dry pressure cooker about to explode. 

His throat dry, Tony swallowed, unable to hear the banter, to make out the familiar sounds of Gibbs' monosyllables, McGee's whining questions, or Ziva's threats. Instead, his eye became a camera lens, capturing tiny scenes amidst this movie's rapidly paced action. Each burst of Tony's inner flashbulb was accompanied not by the click of the lens, but by a muffled explosion of light and sound like the old-fashioned flash powder of yesteryear. The picture that remained – like an after-image burned into his retina – was black and white, an instant Polaroid with a wide white margin at the bottom for notes and dates.

Exhibit One – smashed beakers. Exhibit Two – half hidden knife beneath a desk. Exhibit Three – Victim, A. Sciuto. Sweaty, rumpled, exhausted. Exhibit Four – whey-faced, duct-taped attacker. Chip Something. Charles. Tony blinked. The man was staring right at him, eyes ringed with red, murderous rage radiating from the man like a skunk's scent. The only connection Tony DiNozzo seemed capable of making was with this man. Victim. Criminal. Both. Neither. Just like Tony.

He thrust his fists into his trouser pockets. He plastered down his 'curious but unaffected' mask and held on tight. When his mind did this, when it removed color and sound and scent from his memories, when it piled his thoughts into neat stacks and filed them into square cardboard photo boxes it meant things had gone beyond bad and were rapidly approaching totally screwed. He had to get out of there. If he stayed, if he set one foot inside the invisible boundary between himself and this scene – and his team – there'd be no going back. No stilted smiles or movie quotes would bring him back from the edge. Not this time.

Gibbs had seen it before. Back when they'd worked together with no net and no buffer of IT geek and Mossad ninja, he'd seen it. Witnessed Tony erupt in naked fury and instant violence. A young girl had been found, naked, tied up, tortured for years as a sex-slave by your average middle-aged couple in their average middle-class ranch house. It had taken all of Gibbs' Marine training to tear Tony from the man's throat. Gibbs had seen it again, just beginning, in the FBI cell. Heard it in Tony's venomous monologue, the self-mutilation of his character he'd shouted from atop the metal toilet. He'd seen it when he crooked his finger and looked into Tony's red-rimmed eyes.

The head-slap had shut him up, but it was the touch under his chin that had stopped Tony's inner runaway locomotive from derailing. For a while. Until Sacks had appeared with blood in his eye and a heavy-set partner he'd sicced on the apparently dirty Fed. More colorless photos flipped past and Tony ground his teeth together to keep the images moving. Keep the sound and scent and touch from reaching him.

It had started when he was a kid. When Tony's mom died and his father checked out of the fathering business. If little Anthony DiNozzo's memories could be clipped of movement, drained of bright colors, and the scent of sickness and scotch, the feel of rough hands and the taste of bile, then he would be okay. That little boy could hide in the big lounge chair in the den and watch TV. Or he could get one of the staff to take him into town where he could spend hours in the movie theater not remembering the sound of his mom's laugh and the smell of her perfume.

Since then, Tony's little quirk had served him well. Hazing at Military School. A broken leg on the OSU football field. A broken dream of marriage and family the night before his wedding. Kate's blood spraying across his face on a rooftop. Snapshots of black and white could be tucked away beneath every day needs, a demanding boss, and the current Ms. Right Now. Pile up enough sensations on top of them and sometimes Tony forgot they were even there.

For a while. For a window. For enough time to bury himself behind solid walls of buffoonery and smiles.

"We'll take it from here."

Fornell and Sacks. Here. Now. They shouldered past Tony's stillness, Sacks making sure to smack his elbow into Tony's sore back to try to knock him off balance. Suddenly the lab leaped into full Technicolor and Tony found his hand in the Fibbie's collar, yanking Sacks back into the hallway and away from Chip and the team. Yep, too late.

"No."

Tony didn't waste time on Gibbs' reaction or the team's surprise. He stalked forward, turning Fornell to face him with a single grip on the balding man's shoulder. "The FBI has screwed this one up quite enough, Fornell, don't you think?"

"Listen, DiNutso-"

Fornell's bland three-letter attitude, colorless face, grey off-the-rack suit, and pale blue eyes blazed cold as Tony leaned in, his breath hot enough to melt the older man's eyebrows.  
"You've heard it often enough. Filled it in on the arrest warrant. On the booking slip. On the personal property inventory. On the notice of arraignment – deferred, of course." He felt his teeth pull back from his lips. "DiNozzo." Tony let the z's scorch like dull blades across Fornell's tender turkey neck. "I won't remind you again."

Fornell's eyes narrowed and then focused over Tony's shoulder. "Better call off your boy, Gibbs. He's likely to get hurt."

Tony's hands gripped Fornell's lapels. He jerked him close, chest to chest, just to see the bright flare of fear in the much shorter man's eyes. Then he thrust him away, letting him stumble backwards over Chip's trussed up legs. The agent didn't fall, but it was a close one.

Agent DiNozzo, I understand that you're angry, but –"

Tony raised one hand to shut the Director up. Her advice he did not need. She'd hired the homicidal idiot. She'd let the FBI take Tony, hide him away in their in-house dungeon, bypassing proper procedure over and over again. Let them – He shook off the thoughts, shoving the damned polaroids back into their boxes, and grabbed his phone, paging down until he found the right number.

Staring straight into Jenny Shepard's wide doe-eyes, he kept his words clipped and short. It was either that or spill out all the curses that were trying to find their way out. "Adler. DiNozzo. You owe me. Get your ass over here. To the Navy Yard. I find I'm in need of some legal advice. Actually," he took a breath and steadied his resolve, "I was in need of some two days ago but, strangely, was never allowed a phone to get some." He paused, listening. "Am I in trouble?" His laugh sounded dark and twisted, even by his standards. "Not anymore, but several other people and government agencies are. Yes, including NCIS."

Tony let Steve Adler throw out a couple more questions before he cut his frat brother off. "Well, that's what I need you for." He ended the call and fingered his phone a moment, lining up all the calls he needed to make, one after the other, on his speed dial.

"What do you think you're doing, Agent DiNozzo?"

"Director – at least, for the moment," Tony added with a shark's grin, "Maybe you should try not to piss me or Abby or Gibbs off any more right now. Go up to your cushy office and call your own lawyer. Or SecNav. Or whoever you're – " Tony bit off the hot, bitter words before his anger put him immediately out of a job. "You're going to need them," he finished.

Yeah, you can't fake pale. Tony's first partner had taught him that a long time ago, long before Gibbs' rules. His almost accusations had hit Madame Director right in the gut. He'd follow up on that later.

"Anthony, my dear boy."

"Ducky." Tony cut him off before the kind, old ME could touch him. "I'm sorry, I know you want to help, but I think I'm going to need an impartial doctor to document everything."

The ME's eyes turned from warm and caring to a cold, steel blue aimed directly at Fornell. "To document what, Anthony?"

Yeah. Ducky wasn't stupid. The older man moved a step closer to Tony as if his small frame could stand as a barrier between Tony and the others – Fornell, Sacks, Shepard – hell, everyone. The only one on Team Gibbs who was more protective was …

"McGee, David, get this piece of crap out of here. Get him booked and read his rights and into interrogation. And tell Vincente to get his team down here to document the crime scene."

Tony could feel the waves of frustration coming off his Boss – delegating Abby's lab to another team? Yeah, someone was going to pay for that necessity. Not Tony. Not this time.

"Ducky – why don't you take Abby into her office and make sure she's okay."

Gibbs was watching him. Tony could feel it, but he wouldn't turn his head. More file photos were flipping past, rippling like one of those old flip books he used to make on the edge of his school tablets. Sacks in interrogation. Cuffs snapped on too tight behind his back. The 'oh, so sorry' trip and push that sent Tony tumbling down the cement steps into the Fibbies' special holding area, unable to stop himself. Sacks in the FBI Interrogation Room, gloves off, his sneering, teeth-bared attitude wiping away Tony's reserve. His jumbo-sized partner. Coming at him - Tony shook his head, trying to stop the parade of images, to get them to line up into precise and perfect stacks so he could deal with the right now. The right here.

He had to get out of here.

"Hey."

Gibbs was there. Standing close, his voice low and even, his hands in plain sight. Lion-tamer. Child rescuer. Not the lean, mean Marine face he'd be showing to everyone else as soon as he turned away. Something tied up tight inside Tony's gut churned. He didn't like Gibbs nice.

"Go wait in Conference Room 2. Make your calls. I'll let security know to let Adler and…" he waited for Tony to fill in the blank.

"Brad."

Nodding, Gibbs finished. "… Pitt in. Lock the door. I'll bring up your go-bag from your locker." He tilted his head, the light from the lab throwing harsh lines around his eyes. "Took it from your car before they could tow it."

A word of thanks, of acknowledgment, tossed itself around in Tony's mouth but he couldn't open his clenched jaw enough to let it out.

One hand latched onto Tony's elbow and turned him towards the door. Tony let it. Until he raised his eyes and saw the figure waiting in the doorway.

Sacks.

Gibbs didn't pause, not for a second, just kept right on walking. Tony's eyes narrowed at the FBI agent, wondering what it would feel like to stomp the man's face under his Zegna loafers. Unfortunately, Gibbs' vibe was strong enough to proceed them like some kind of force field and it swept Sacks right out of the way and against the wall. After depositing Tony in the open elevator – no doubt called there by Gibbs' thoughts – his Boss didn't waste any more words. He nodded, one finger pointed upward to the bullpen level before turning back to the chaos.

Tony's last sight over the man's shoulder was Sacks' squinty eyes, his hands on his hips, while Fornell stood just behind him, ignored, white-faced and grim as he spoke quickly in his fellow Fibbie's ear.


	2. Chapter 2

-2-

Alone behind the closed door of the conference room, the barrier between Tony and the others seemed to harden into stone. He stood by the window, a cup of coffee cooling in his hand, and focused on the glow of the District that rose behind the office towers that ringed the squat little NCIS building. He imagined the lines of tail lights, glowing red, on every road, tapering off now as the clock hands drifted into the wee hours. The music and laughter that poured from the doors of bars and restaurants would be turning sour, family men and women having made their way through the throngs to get home long ago, leaving only the darker, drunker, meaner citizens to drift away in hopeless ones and desperate twos.

Home. Safety and love and family. Like in the old movies and television shows that Tony loved. Ozzie would smile and take off his jacket, welcoming kids and wife with open arms. Dick Van Dyke had Laura and Richie. Even Darren Stevens – either one – got to leave Larry Tate behind and come home to a beautiful witch. He would close the door behind him to shut out the day's turmoil, happy to be in the one place where he could be himself. Television. Movies. It was the only glimpse Tony had of normal families. And what did that say about his expectations?

Normal families with normal problems. Maybe some grief, or illness, sadness or doubt. Single fathers making do. Lonely widows lighting one candle in the window. Normal families were not something in Tony's experience.

His mind's photo album offered up scenes of his childhood. A glowing Christmas tree, twelve-feet tall and decorated with a designer's hand standing in the polished foyer of their Long Island home. His mother's smooth cheek against his as they watched the lights. A couple of guys on a fishing trip, both of them clueless about bait and hooks and casting, but grinning from ear to ear. A little boy standing alone beside a casket draped with flowers. His father disappearing behind closed doors to smile and talk and make his deals.

Closed doors made you safe, let you take off the masks and settle inside your own skin so that you could walk back through them the next day into the world. And the next. On and on. It's all that Tony wanted an hour ago. A chance to get behind his own closed door and recover his balance. He glanced back at the conference room door, remembering the crash of the cell door closing, the deafening echo – at least partially imagined – that seemed to shake reality until Tony felt himself adrift, cut off, shipwrecked.

The back doors of Fornell's sedan. The heavy steel doors of the FBI building. Holding area doors – wide-shouldered guards standing as human locks with no keys. Cell doors. The doors he'd encountered lately hadn't come with any sense of safety. Or relief. Or solitude, for that matter. Those doors had eyes, eyes that stared and sneered, judged and condemned. They reminded you that this life – this locked away but wide open, vulnerable life – was probably going to be your only life from now on.

Tony shivered and took a sip from the NCIS mug. And then made a face and set it down on the credenza. He crossed his arms over his chest, the thin material of his dress shirt doing nothing to add warmth. Three days in the same clothes might be a record. Too bad. He eyed the suit coat he'd dumped on the table. He used to like this suit. Gibbs had dropped off his go bag a few minutes ago, but Tony didn't want to go through this twice, so he decided to wait for Brad and Steve before he bothered changing.

Another strip show. It must be Tuesday.

The last one hadn't been one to write home about. He'd had no intention of telling anyone, of letting any of his team in on his humiliation. The indignity of Sacks and his pet gorilla watching the impersonal guard doing his job, peeling off Tony's layers of designer clothes along with the thinning, stretching, fraying hold he'd had on his emotions. Body cavity search. Tony lifted his chin, the sound of his teeth grinding loud in the quiet room. 

Yeah, wouldn't Probie have loved that. His 'slip of the tongue' moment when he visited Tony in the cell said a lot. A lot about McGee's resentment. His sheer joy about Tony's predicament. Tim had thought it was funny. Hilarious. Getting one – or several dozen - up on Tony had put a bounce in his step and a smile on his face. Sure, Tim was genuinely happy that Tony had been released, and he would be much more likely to turn on Sacks and Fornell if he knew what had really happened. But Tony hadn't wanted to take that chance. The chance that his little brother would pity him. 

Ziva, no doubt, would have narrowed her eyes and quietly smirked at his pansy-ass attitude. Or not so quietly. She'd more likely fling out awkward innuendos with sharpened claws that could reach in and tear at Tony's shell of control. From day one Ziva David had pushed and pulled at him, come-hither eyes saying one thing while every pore of her body oozed superiority if not sneering disgust. Tony's love of undercover assignments had taken a nose-dive after their hitch as husband and wife contract killers. Undercover was hard enough without a partner you didn't know and didn't trust. 

Back in the bullpen after his cameo of 'Federal Agent Arrested as Serial Killer,' Tony had told jokes. He'd made them laugh with him instead of at him. Made up stories of his stay in the Fibbies' prison that were just short of Shawshank material, while the black and white photos shuffled past, faster and faster, unwilling to stop, to stay, to let themselves be hustled behind his mind's sturdy walls. Just a few more minutes, he'd told himself. Just long enough to make them believe it. Then he'd walk off, unhurried, untroubled, his back straight and his smile firmly in place, to process.

He sighed, eyes closed against the glaring overhead lights. So, why the change? Why the calls to Adler and Brad, and the showdown with Fornell and Sacks in the lab? Why did he aim at the new director and paint a new, fresh, colorful target on his own back?

Tony's gut churned and gurgled. That was why. Something was going on here. Something dark and twisted, growing in the muck that Shepard was trailing in her wake. The distractions of flirty glances, low cut dresses, and the heavy perfume of past love affairs and 'what might have been,' were casting long, deep shadows that had unsettled NCIS almost as much as Kate's death and Ziva's sudden appearance. Tony was about as good at politics as Gibbs, but he could smell a rat when one ran up his leg. Especially a female rat.

Trust issues. Commitment issues. He shook his head. What else had he babbled about back in that cell when Gibbs paid his visit? Tony didn't trust women. He liked them. Appreciated them for more than their physical attributes. Heck, he even loved a few. But whoever had originally said "the female of the species is deadlier than the male" must have been a DiNozzo. 

That meant, while Gibbs softened around women, his losses stripping him of all of those second "b" qualities that Tony admired, Tony did the opposite. Gibbs' walls came down and the father/protector hurled itself across mud puddles and into duels on the female's behalf. Tony hid himself away behind disgusting frat-boy talk and playboy smugness. And waited for the other stiletto to drop.

The knock at the door startled him and he cursed himself. "Pull it together, DiNozzo," he murmured, smoothing both hands down the hopelessly wrinkled shirt. "Acting crazy is not going to help you."

Still, he approached the plain face of the door with caution. Madame Director? Fornell? He wasn't quite ready to take on those two yet, nor did he want to play teammates with Ziva and Tim. Tony hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, when "It's Gibbs," came through the solid wood and settled him enough to pull it open.

"And you've brought some friends. Throw in some brews and a game of Twister and it's a real party." Tony nodded towards his ex-frat brother, ex-friend, ex-buddy Steve Adler, dressed to the nines in Saville Row, his litigator nose scenting blood in the water and eager for a piece of it. Brilliant and ruthless, he had the kind of reputation in the District that attorneys worked at for years. It wasn't their years-long friendship that Tony was counting on tonight, that had been cracked and broken when the man had dated – and dumped - Kate Todd, but Adler's connections. Steven P. Adler, Esquire. His name brought clout and would make the big boys closer to the Pentagon sit up and take notice.

If anyone was looking, it was Brad Pitt that they'd assume came from the same frat boy, athletic scholarship, lazy slouch background as Tony. Brad's reputation didn't rely on clothes and attitude and hundred dollar lunches on the Hill. Middle of the night calls were nothing new to the best pulmonologist in the DMV; Brad had rolled out of bed, stuck his feet in his sneakers, and didn't bother combing his hair with anything but his fingers. But, instead of cold and calculating, his eyes were warm and concerned when he gave Tony a quick once-over.

Trailing the other two, Gibbs slipped inside and locked the door behind him. He carried Tony's own equipment case, and his camera. Right. Evidence. Photos. Tony let his Boss hold his gaze for a moment, let Gibbs communicate his support in his relaxed stance and the aura of patience and professionalism he pulled on when talking to witnesses.

Or victims. Damn it.

"You may be wondering why I called you all here," Tony began with the razor-sharp flash of a smile. Just get it over with, he told himself. Tear off the scabs and get to the blood-letting – after, all, they'd barely begun to form, hadn't they? Should be easy.

"Just a second."

Adler. He pulled a sheaf of paper out of his fat briefcase – all ready and waiting – and slapped it on the table. "Sign this. And this." He didn't wait for Tony's response before he set the latest tech in video recorders on the table. "If this goes as high as you think it does, we need to do this right. Especially since this interview is taking place within one of the agencies your charges might target." He straightened the line of his jacket and raised his eyes towards the ceiling. "They're undoubtedly making their own recordings."

"They wish."

That was Gibbs. And suddenly Tony found that his smile was real. When the man had sent Tony to the conference room he'd already been on his phone, directing Franklin – the other Senior Agent still in the building – to stand guard outside. Franklin had his own quirky way of having Gibbs' and Tony's backs over the years, but he wasn't about to see a fellow agent go down. Not on his watch. He'd met Tony at the door, ushered him inside, and then climbed up on the conference room table to pull the video camera right out of the ceiling. His only explanation was a shrug and an "oops." He'd taken the camera with him, just to be sure.

Tony had followed the man's lead and dug out all the transmitters, dropping each one into the always ready carafe of water.

"Well. Good. Okay. Still, sign the papers, DiNozzo."

"Yes, let's get all these legal T's crossed and I's dotted." Tony didn't bother to read the small print. Adler wouldn't screw him. Not this time. He scrawled his name across the Notice of Representation, the Agreement to Maintain Recordings, and the Limited Power of Attorney. Gibbs and Brad shoved the table to one side and pulled out a few chairs, leaving an empty spot for Tony while Steve grabbed up his beloved paperwork and turned on the video recorder.

One deep breath and Tony nodded at Gibbs. Lights. Cameras. Action. He always wanted to be a star.

His sleeves already hanging loose, Tony reached for the buttons on his shirt while he began.

"Deposition of Anthony D. DiNozzo, Special Agent, NCIS, recorded on November 24, 2005, in Conference Room Two of the headquarters of NCIS. Also present are…"

The words rang out in the silent room. Project your voice to the cheap seats, they told you. Witness stand or theater, it was all the same. A little angst, a little suspense, a hero and a villain, a build-up of tension, and a shocking reveal. Get the audience to believe in you, to identify with you and you'd have them eating out of your hand.

It was harder to play to a camera. To get any kind of feedback that kept you on your game from an audience you couldn't see or hear. But, hey, Tony DiNozzo had a great imagination, and he was lining up Jenny Shepard, Tom Morrow, SecNav and the CNO, a Federal Prosecutor, Fornell, and the FBI Deputy Director to sit across from him and watch this show. Not Sacks. No. Keep it simple. Keep it sharp. Keep out the rage and humiliation and pain and give these people the facts. Just the facts. Snapshots in black and white. It would play better for this particular crowd.

And it just might keep Tony from falling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for your comments, kudos, and bookmarks!


	3. Chapter 3

When his shirt hit the floor, Tony didn't allow his steady stream of words to slow or stumble at the others' reactions. Steve's nervous throat-clearing. Brad's angry expletive. Only Gibbs was silent, but he raised the camera and began documenting. Every mark. Every bruise. Especially the slapdash bandage low on Tony's right side, just at his belt.

He was just getting to the good parts.

"Most of the bruises are from Sacks 'accidentally' tripping me at the top of the concrete staircase to the cells. Since my hands were still cuffed behind my back," Tony held out both wrists so Gibbs could get a few good shots of the bright red welts encircling them, "I couldn't exactly break my fall."

"Head impact?" Brad demanded to know, already moving forward to start his examination. 

Tony held him off with raised hands so that Gibbs could finish. "No. I managed to escape a concussion. This time."  
"I'll be determining that for myself, thanks," the doctor replied. "And what about that?" He pointed to thick, stained wad of bandage.  
"That was fun. Turns out that other prisoners don't like Feds who happen to drop into public holding cells. Who knew?" Tony joked before letting the tension show in his face again. "Oh, that's right. Everybody." He started on his belt buckle and then dropped his pants, stepping carefully out of his loafers and leaving it all to Gibbs' gloved hands. He shivered. He loved his boxer/briefs, but they sure didn't keep out the chill. 

"That," he pointed to the bandage, "was the result of a shiv made out of a sharpened spork. Talk about embarrassing. And these –" he gestured to the thick bruising and ugly, broken skin on the front and inner skin of his thighs just below his boxers – "are from boots. Apparently one guy – very big guy – was more than happy to stand on me so the others could take a shot. By then, my helpful, ever so friendly Fibbie friends must have gotten back from their coffee break and decided to step in."

Brad had probably seen a lot of sick, sad stuff in his time as a doctor, but now he was sporting a lovely shade of green. "Holy shit, Tony."

"They put you in public holding?"

Tony turned to stare into Gibbs' eyes. "Between booking and the cavity search. For about fifteen minutes. After announcing who I was to the four thugs who had been in the cell becoming best friends and swapping stories for 12 hours. Long enough."

Gibbs' stare was ice. "I am going to kill Fornell."

Adler moved nervously, his polished demeanor showing some cracks as he took in Tony's testimony and the obvious marks of his stay with the FBI. "I'm not your lawyer, Agent Gibbs, but I must advise you to refrain from making threats. Especially when you're being recorded."

Gibbs put the camera down on the table with a deliberation that spoke volumes about his desire to throw the thing through the nearest window. "Not a threat." He shook out an evidence bag and dropped Tony's shirt and pants into it. Took the shoes, too.

Gibbs' reaction freed something inside Tony, some little hardened knot of fear. That he wouldn't be believed. That Gibbs' connection with two of the players in this farce would keep him from having Tony's back. It had happened before. Gibbs was about getting the job done, no matter what, and now that Chip was locked away and Tony was free, he might have wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Hell, he'd let Fornell hurl Tony into beltway traffic zipped into a body bag, helpless, just so he could keep jurisdiction over a body.

Exhaustion threatened, stealing some of Tony's determination and rage and he swayed. Gibbs was beside him in a second, careful to touch him where no bruises were blooming.

"Hey. Can you finish this? Gotta move on this before the politicians circle the wagons. If you can."

"Yeah. Okay." Tony swallowed and stepped away from his boss. Gibbs' grip on his bicep didn't let him go far. "Boss?"

"I've got your six, DiNozzo."

Maybe Gibbs had read the doubt in his eyes. "Do you, Boss? Because this is going to get messy." He hoped his Boss could read between the lines. Messy for Gibbs. For Shepard. For Fornell. Probably for Ziva, too.

"Worry about yourself. About doing the right thing, here. Not about what shit hits what fan." Gibbs tapped Tony under the chin just like he'd done in the cell. "Tell the truth. Just like you would on the stand. What they do with it," he jerked his head in the direction of the director's office, "is up to them."

"Agent Gibbs, if you're finished I'd like to examine my patient. Hell, he probably needs to go to the ER."

Brad was getting fidgety. The blood staining the slapped-on bandage on Tony's side might have something to do with that.

"No hospital," Tony insisted, finally tearing his gaze from Gibbs' to find his doctor. His friend. "Not yet." He nodded towards Adler. "Need to finish this."

"Fine. Finish it. But let me at least examine you."

Tony shrugged and Brad stepped in to carefully peel the bandage from Tony's skin. Gibbs was there with the camera, moving the doctor out of the way while he held a measuring tape beside the two jagged wounds and shot another half-dozen pictures. Dark blood oozed from the largest hole, angry red skin ringing it saying a lot about Sacks' idea of wound care. No cleaning, no stitches, no nothing, but a couple of bandages and a "you'll live." 

While Brad muttered and poked, Gibbs moved back – far enough to lean against the wall, taking care that the evidence was marked correctly before tucking it away. When it was clear that he wasn't going to rush out with it, Tony took a deep breath and continued.

"Before you decide what to do about Fornell, you should know that, after they 'escorted' me from NCIS, I didn't see Fornell again until he came to release me. This was Sacks' show. He was the one in charge." Tony flinched as the doctor touched a particularly tender spot. His ribs were sore from the fall. Not broken, though. Small mercies. 

Tony shook off those thoughts and continued. "Sacks is the lead agent on an FBI task force targeting corruption in federal agencies. He isn't Fornell's lackey like we thought. He and his buddies were tasked with rooting out bad pennies – agents using their badges to do shady things. Some irony, there, huh, Boss?" Tony closed his eyes, retreating to the darkness so he could pretend Brad wasn't standing too close, that Adler wasn't sharpening his knives and figuring out where to carve up the Federal Beast that Tony had devoted his career to serving. That Gibbs wasn't watching, weighing, and filling in all the blanks that Tony was deliberately leaving.

"There've been a lot of questions raised. Eyes closed to questionable tactics, protocols being sidestepped. At least, that's the gist of it that I got from Sacks' interrogations. Some of it goes fairly high up. Personal grudges. Unsanctioned ops." The flashbulbs burst. Sacks' face pressed close to Tony's, screwed up in searing hatred. His large, ominous buddy standing just behind Tony. Breathing against his neck. The gorilla grabbing a fistful of Tony's hair and bending his neck backwards. No marks. No bruises, just that huge hand wrapped lightly over Tony's throat. Holding him like that for long, silent minutes while Tony choked, coughed, unbelieving.

The photos kept spewing from their safe, dark boxes and Tony raised one hand to rub against his forehead to try to drive them away. "Seems like Sacks kinda missed the memo, though. Skipping protocol, ignoring rights and conventions so he could prosecute feds who are dirty? Where the hell does that revolving door leave you?" Where had it left Tony? Alone. Angry. Afraid.

It didn't make any more sense now than it did when Tony was mulling it over in his cell. Sacks was angry. Livid. And he was taking all of his anger out on Tony. A guy who – apparently – was using his badge to kill women. Okay, fine. But while Tony and all the other agents of NCIS had a natural kind of sibling rivalry with the FBI – the agency that almost always stepped into the limelight and stole all their glory – their agents weren't stupid. And this murder had all the hallmarks of a serial killer. Serial killers didn't just jump into their kills, their MO, their signatures of biting and cutting off limbs and… other things. And no one could hide that kind of evidence. Not for long. No, not a bit of this case had made sense. But Sacks didn't need more than forensics to make up his mind. He didn't need logic or reasoning, let alone good profiling. And he thought threats, bruises, torture would get Tony to spill on whoever he was aiming for.

That was all that Sacks wanted. And he had wanted it badly.

Tony hurried through the rest of his story. Continued interrogations. How he'd requested a phone call. A lawyer. To speak with Gibbs. Or Fornell. Medical treatment. He'd stopped answering Sacks' questions after the third or fourth repetition and invoked. It hadn't mattered. Sacks got angrier. Tony got quieter. The photos slapped one by one against Tony's inner eye and he tucked away all the little indignities that no one needed to know about. That Gibbs didn't need to know about. Not yet.

"That's when Timmy – Agent Timothy McGee – came to tell me Gibbs and Ziva had found the woman's body in George Stewart's freezer. Honestly, I was too relieved to think about how that bozo wouldn't have had the know-how or the balls to plant evidence like this. Or the opportunity. Where would he have gotten my glove? My dental records?" Tony saw Gibbs grimace out of the corner of his eye. Yeah, Gibbs hadn't noticed all the problems with the case against Stewart either. And they were some huge glaring problems. What the hell had gone on here at NCIS while Tony was trying to keep himself alive?

"Anyway, that's my story. Fornell released me, Tim drove me back to NCIS, and the real criminal tried to kill our Forensic Technician. So that leaves us with several burning questions: One, how did Chip Sterling get hired to work at NCIS? Who bypassed the background check? Or did someone simply choose to ignore its findings? Or, maybe," Tony raised a finger, "he was hired specifically for this reason. Because he had a grudge against me."

"That's not testimony, Tony. That's conjecture," Adler stated.

"Then allow me to conject, Stevie. Because somebody has to." Tony lurched away from Brad's cold, pointy fingers. "Aren't you done, yet?"

"No." Brad stood and put his hands on his hips. "You need to go to the ER. Right now. We need to check on internal injuries, get you hooked up to IV antibiotics, and further assessed. I don't like the sound of your breathing. And, no, Tony," it was the doctor's turn to raise one finger, "I don't mean later. I mean now."

Tony grabbed at the sweats that Gibbs threw against his chest. "Fine, but keep recording, because somebody has got to raise these questions before everything disappears under the table with a slap on the ass and a handshake between the big boys and girls of NCIS and the FBI." He tugged on the loose pants, hissing when the waistband slapped against the still oozing hole in his side. And then Gibbs and Brad were beside him, helping. 

"Go ahead. Talk. Get it all out."

Wow. Gibbs was telling Tony to talk. Good thing Adler was recording this as no one was going to believe him.

"Two: Jennifer Shepard, my ultimate boss, the one who calmly let the FBI take me out of here on some shady evidence and absolutely nothing else, put a discredited lab tech into NCIS where he came into contact with evidence from a boatload of federal cases. All of which could now be thrown out of court because of his mishandling. And, let's face it, the guy is nuts so who knows what he did to foul things up when Abby wasn't looking."

Tony cleared his throat and eased down into the chair Gibbs was holding. "Three. Sacks and his task force are targeting someone. Yeah, they're assholes and I am going after them, but I wasn't even their real target. Could tell that by the questions. By Sacks' insistence that I reveal who got me into NCIS. How someone helped me get to my targets, hide my obviously homicidal tendencies." 

Gibbs crouched at Tony's side and handed him his sneakers and socks. Their eyes met over a pair of tube socks and Tony noticed the half-smirk on his Boss's face. Warmth began to trickle back into Tony's icy skin as Gibbs reminded Tony – silently, of course – about Rule Five. Nice one, Boss, he thought. Unfortunately, that made what Tony had to say next that much harder.

"I told them about Baltimore. Hedged about Danny. Told them you recruited me, Boss."

"Well, that's good, DiNozzo. 'Cause it's what happened. Don’t remember any homicidal tendencies, though. Just a lot of yabba and bad taste in coffee."

"A little hazelnut creamer is not going to kill you, Boss." Relief bobbed up and down in Tony's gut while photos of tackling Gibbs in a Baltimore alley rippled in his memory. He pressed his lips together tight for a second, weighing his choices. Yeah, just like he thought. He had to say it. To tick off that last point that took his suspicions from the paranoid ramblings of a mistreated prisoner to the logical reasoning of a seasoned investigator. To let Adler have all the ammunition he could for his first volley of shots across SecNav's bow. He fisted his hands and dropped his gaze.

"And, four: It was Director Shepard who accepted a foreign agent into NCIS. Who gave her Intel about each member of the MCRT which enabled her half-brother to target and kill one of our teammates. Agent Katelyn Todd." Gone but not forgotten. Never forgotten. Tony released his clenched hands and shoved his feet into his shoes. "Director Shepard then forced this Mossad operative onto the MCRT where she continues to try to drive wedges between its members."

Hands on his knees, Tony raised his eyes to Gibbs'. "This all adds up to something. Something bad. And it's all targeted right at the MCRT. At the lead NCIS team. Destabilize that team and you knock a hole in NCIS' ability to do its job, to protect the men and women who protect our country."

"Tony."

"I'm sorry, Gibbs." He really was. He didn't want to hurt Gibbs or make him out to be a gullible old man who looked at a sad-eyed woman and saw only his past losses. Who reacted to the new director with memories of hot steamy nights that blurred the truth. But someone had to say it. Someone had to get it out there. "Kate shouldn't be swept under the rug. You can't just slot in another female of about the same height, weight, and hair color. She was my partner. My friend. I won't forget her. And neither should you."

"I'm not-"

Tony didn't let him finish. "And you can't ignore that Director Shepard and Officer David have played you, me, and Tim like fiddles since they arrived. Something is going on here, Gibbs. Something big."

Tony reached out and grabbed Gibbs' arm, making the man meet his eyes, forcing his Boss to see the steel that sheathed Tony's spine, the utter finality of his decisions. His next words were for Gibbs alone. "I'm going to get to the bottom of it. That's why I called Steve. That's the only reason I'm exposing myself like this. You know me. You know I tend to let things slide. To put them away, forget about them. I can't do it this time. I'm going to see this thing through. With or without you."


	4. Chapter 4

-4-

Jennifer Shepard stood alone in MTAC, her head swiveling from side to side to take in every screen, eyes narrowed at the images she saw – and at the ones she did not see. The large screen on her right was black. Dead. Empty. The video camera in the conference room one floor down had been disabled, leaving her blind. The audio transmitters gave off only the hiss and ping of digital microphones exposed to water. She'd shut off the annoying sound long ago.

She willed a deep, slow breath and then another as she scanned the brutal wreckage of her plan. Sterling had gone off the rails much faster than she'd imagined he would. And Abby Sciuto had been much more able to defend herself than anyone could have predicted. From Shepard's observations and Intel, the woman was little more than a child – physically – with no hand-to-hand skills, an attitude of 'protected princess', and a work-ethic that kept her perpetually sleep-deprived and undernourished. She should have been the easiest target in the building, yet she had taken down a rabid, cornered man six inches taller and wielding a knife.

Shepard did not like being wrong, and today was all about her mistakes. Misjudgments. Bad Intel or simple stupidity, she wondered, not for the first time. Although she had set these things in motion, had placed herself in the center of this web, pushing here and pulling there to effect the changes she needed, she couldn't help wondering if there was some other hand at work against her.

Karma. A Higher Power. She scoffed, the sound eerie in the empty room. No. She'd given up believing in those things when she was a child. When she had her first glimpses behind the uniforms of her father and his friends. When the shiny medals and colorful ribbons tarnished and frayed. No, she wouldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it. There was no way she'd allow herself to fail.

Sterling should have held on, should have killed Abby when she was defenseless and alone. Shepard's enemies at the FBI, their arrogance fueled into white hot hatred of all things NCIS by all the breadcrumbs she and her allies had been dropping, should have been just a little slower to rescue DiNozzo from holding. Shepard had been alibied, protected, her ass covered by her obvious desire to be helpful. That was the plan. Gibbs should have lost two more of his 'kids' today. First Todd. Then Sciuto and DiNozzo.

It would have broken the man. And she'd been counting on it.

She'd timed it all so perfectly. Put every pawn on the board in just the right place. She'd winked and smiled and flirted, turned petulant, and straightened and shown her teeth when necessary. She'd made herself valuable to SecNav and the CNO with her close relationship with Eli David and his daughter, with the Intel on International Ops that Eli had handed over to cement her position. Eli had been a useful – if arrogant and manipulative – compatriot. That he'd stolen 'pretty Jenny' from his son Ari's bed for his own made him preen like a peacock, never realizing that it was Jenny who had aimed for so much higher than a confused boy's whispered midnight confessions.

Eli thought he held all the cards. Thought Jenny couldn't make a move without him. Old world through and through, the man didn't have a clue about what a woman could do. He'd had the upper hand once, turned over the right rocks and found Svetlana Chernitskaya – Shepard's one and only mistake – and fueled the Russian woman's thirst for vengeance against the agents that had killed her arms dealer fiancée. She clenched her teeth, fingernails driving into the palms of her hands as she fisted them behind her back. Yes, Eli David had been clever and resourceful – he'd sent in Ari and Ziva to kill Svetlana just as she'd trapped Shepard in a Bucharest alley. 

After that, Eli thought he'd owned her. Her smile grew slick and sharp in the darkness. And she'd allowed him think so.

Yes. She'd let Eli David set her up to be the first female director of an armed government agency. She'd thanked him quite enough. Setting up Gibbs' team to eliminate the threat of his unstable son while ensuring a place for his utterly loyal daughter had done it. Ziva was well on her way to winning Gibbs' fatherly heart – and she'd be a perfect conduit for any information – or misinformation – that Shepard wanted to filter through to Mossad Intelligence. Eli didn't know her endgame. He had no idea that she wouldn't continue to take his orders or his bulk between her legs. Her aim was higher and her connections went deeper than he could possibly imagine.

Shepard stepped forward and adjusted the settings on the monitor board. Vincente's team was still working in the lab, gathering evidence, taking photographs. It was a useless bit of camouflage that would keep the agency busy for a while, keep them from looking beyond Sterling for motivation. Charles Sterling's trembling figure sat on the screen to her left, sweating and mumbling to himself in Interrogation, the perfect patsy if she could keep his mouth shut. She adjusted another switch and saw that Abby's office was empty. Hadn't Gibbs ordered Ducky to take Abby there for examination? Shepard sighed. Everyone seemed to be off script tonight.

There. In the morgue. Of course. She rolled her eyes. What a lovely, warm place to assure an assaulted woman that she was safe. Mallard and Palmer had pulled up a couple of stools and were having a tea party, with Abby sitting, legs crossed in front of her, on an autopsy table. Shepard snapped on the switch for audio and took a step backwards when all three turned towards the room's camera.

"Yes, Director? How may we help you?"

Mallard's tone was relaxed and professional, as always. So far so good. But how did they know she'd switched on the audio?

"Just checking in on Abby, Ducky. Are you sure she shouldn't go to the hospital to get checked out?" Shepard let her rising tension seep into the question. "I'm worried about you."

Abby's head swung back and forth, her pigtails flying. "I'm fine, Director. And I'd rather have Ducky's cup of tea than any well-meaning, ham-handed doctor's advice. I think we've had enough of that for now, don't you?" Dark eyes peered straight into the camera, seeming to spear Shepard where she stood. "I mean ham-handed, not the well-meaning bit. You got that, right?"

Shepard's spine straightened. The childish Goth lab tech was calling _her_ 'ham-handed'? She pulled herself together and softened her tone. Damage control, she thought. Damage control. "I understand we've all been a little unbalanced by these events, but I hope you know that I'd never have placed Mister Sterling in our lab if I'd realized he'd been instrumental in getting evidence in a Baltimore case thrown out."

"Or that he was a homicidal nutjob gunning for Agent DiNozzo?"

Was that Palmer of all people standing up to her now? This was getting much too far out of control. She opened her mouth to put the boy in his place, but Mallard beat her to the punch.

"Thank you, Mister Palmer, but I'm sure that Director Shepard had no idea how volatile or cunning Sterling was. His hiring at NCIS must have simply… slipped through the cracks. Cracks I am sure the director is closing up even as we speak."

Mallard had no idea how right he was. Any fingerprints Shepard might have left on Sterling's less than by-the-book hiring were being erased. Permanently. If there was one thing a pet Mossad operative was good for, it was the elimination of threats.

"I believe we'll find we can learn quite a lot from this sequence of events," Mallard continued, turning to pour another cup for his lab assistant. "All of us." Placing the teapot back on its trivet, he offered the plate of cookies to his younger friends, probably hoping the two would fill their mouths with the sweets instead of targeting the NCIS director with more pointed comments. "Now, is there anything else you need, Director?"

Hell, yes. Shepard needed a lot of things. But nothing that Mallard could give her. Not right now. "No, Ducky. Thank you. I think you should all head home." She didn't wait for a response before shutting down the link.

She had thought about keeping them all at NCIS, under her watchful eye. Requiring written reports from all of them, for instance, so that she could supposedly pursue Sterling's twisted trail and close up all the loopholes once and for all. But what she wanted – what she needed now - was time. Time to analyze what DiNozzo was doing. To line up her defenses and possible attacks in case he managed to catch the attention of anyone higher up the chain of command than her office. Unlikely, she mused, but possible. After all, she could count on Gibbs to protect her. To insist that his lap dog shake off this latest 'unpleasantness', roll over, and play dead, just as he had so many times before.

Gibbs might not be broken, but he was all hers. Too busy remembering Paris and keeping his eye on her legs and ass to actually see what was right in front of him. Davenport. David. Gibbs. Fornell. They were all the same. Men of a certain age could be urged down one of two trains of thought: Pecker or Papa. If they couldn't get you into bed, they'd turn you into a lost little girl who couldn't survive without their help. In Shepard's experience, exceptions were rare and could be dealt with on a case by case basis. 

Ari had been a challenge – for a while. Too unpredictable to be useful, she and the other two Davids had had their hands full with him. Brilliant and ruthless, an expert of masks and hidden agendas, yes, but Ari could be manipulated, his strings pulled. Once she found the right fulcrum, the right soft spot, Shepard could move the world. Ari's had been his hatred of his father and his deadly jealousy of his half-sister. After his infiltration of NCIS on Eli's orders, it had taken Shepard no time at all to plant the seeds about Gibbs and Todd, to compare Gibbs – silver-haired patriarch of NCIS – to his father. Todd, the petite powerhouse, to his sister, Ziva. And look how that had turned out, she smiled.

Shepard turned, her eye caught by movement on a smaller screen aimed at the hallway outside the blind conference room. Franklin had moved aside, allowing Gibbs to lead DiNozzo and his friends towards the elevator. Brad Pitt, renowned pulmonologist who had coaxed DiNozzo back from the brink of death less than a year ago. She nodded, checking him off her mental tally sheet. Honest. Protective. Not a threat.

Steve Adler, on the other hand, was a shark. She focused on the glint in his eye, the hurry in his step. He clearly thought he had something. Something that would bring him a lot of money and a lot of notoriety - the only two things a litigator like him would covet. And two things that could cost Shepard quite a bit. She reached for her phone, anxious to get her colleagues to start shoveling whatever dirt they could dig up about the man. She'd bury him. Eventually. But she needed time to do it.

DiNozzo limped along between them, dressed in soft, grey sweats. Poor boy. No matter the man's sharp words and pointed demands down in Abby's lab, Shepard wasn't afraid of him. As an agent, he was good, made connections and closed cases. As a person, he was a harmless playboy. A skirt-chaser with his nose firmly up Gibbs' ass. He'd fall into line. Once Adler was convinced to bow out. Once Pitt saw that his patient hadn't really been hurt in the FBI's custody.

Once pretty Jenny appealed to Gibbs for his help. Big, soft eyes and a low-cut blouse ought to do the trick. And, if not, she could just as easily appeal to the man's ego. She'd been his probie, once. He would not want to see her fail.

There was still time to break him. To leave him empty and alone. She had to eliminate Gibbs before she went after Benoit. After her real target. The arms dealer who had murdered her father and left her family in ruins. Only Gibbs had the balls to stop her – and the steel-trapped mind to figure out her agenda. He had to go.

And Shepard had his number. Attacking Gibbs himself would never amount to anything. Marines ran towards the gunfire, not away from it, and Gibbs still had half a death-wish rumbling around in that guilt ridden heart of his. Targeting his team, his 'kids', was the way to break him. First Todd. Then Abby and DiNozzo. Two failures. Shepard crossed her arms over her chest as she watched the men enter the elevator, watched Gibbs' casual gentleness with DiNozzo, the way he protected the younger man with his posture and stance. How he stood before the doors to the elevator as they closed, daring anyone to approach them.

DiNozzo first. Shepard chewed on the inside of her lip, examining possible ways to manipulate this situation to still target the young agent. Or to draw him out from behind Gibbs' protection. Yes, that would be easier. DiNozzo's Italian ego wouldn't let him linger too long as the protected child of Father Gibbs. And he and Abby seemed to have a brother/sister relationship. A smile stole across her face. Good.

Two little birds. One big stone.

Shepard shut down MTAC with a few twists of her wrist and headed towards the door, her phone held to her ear.

"Silver War," she snapped. "Then meet me in Eden. We have plans to make."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Jenny. Bad, bad Jenny. Just my take on a darker AU version of the Shepard character.


	5. Chapter 5

-5-

Gibbs shut his phone without dialing for a second time. He wanted an update from McGee and David on Sterling. He needed to find out that Abby was being taken care of. That she hadn't been hurt. And that Ducky had gotten her home okay. And, more than anything, he wanted to call Fornell and ask him just what kind of game the man had been playing with one of his agents.

Considering the crap that was probably flowing up and down the political highways between NCIS, the FBI, and the Joint Chiefs, Gibbs was surprised his phone hadn't rung once. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth together. Out of the loop, uninformed, intentionally blindsided. This wasn't how the MCRT worked. This wasn't in line with any of Gibbs' rules or protocols for his team. His team. His agents. His lead.

Why couldn't anyone seem to remember that?

From Shepard to Fornell to DiNozzo himself, it seemed like each one wanted to call his own plays without any input from Gibbs. And while Gibbs could give DiNozzo a pass, for the moment, everyone else had better get the hell back in line.

He leaned against the wall outside DiNozzo's exam room, eyes narrowed at the suit-clad figure of Steve Adler pacing at the end of the hall. A lawyer. It was the first call DiNozzo made. And it was Gibbs' first wake-up call that something – a lot of somethings – were very, very wrong. DiNozzo hated lawyers almost as much as Gibbs did. And Rule 13 – well, Tony wouldn't break it unless there was a damned good reason. Especially not with Adler.

Gibbs knew the story. Adler was one of DiNozzo's frat buddies from Ohio State. That group had kept in touch down through the years, saw each other every year. They were as tight as any bunch of recruits or any Marine troop that Gibbs had ever seen. From all walks of life, in every state and from all different careers and lifestyles, those men had been Tony's family through most of his life.

That one of Tony's frat brothers lived in DC made the decision to move to NCIS even easier for DiNozzo. And Adler had been a real help – helping him find an apartment, giving him the guided tour of the area that Gibbs wouldn't be found dead doing. Adler had smoothed DiNozzo's path. Gibbs figured he owed the lawyer that much.

But when the guy laid eyes on Kate, the friendship had strained. Not because DiNozzo was interested in breaking Rule 12 with Todd – more like his buddy was hitting on Tony's little sister. Probably some rule about that in that stupid fraternity. The sniping in the bullpen turned nasty. Bitter. Adler apparently wasn't above trading embarrassing stories about DiNozzo for sex, and Kate had been so intent on her friendly rivalry with her partner that she didn't see that sex was all Adler wanted. Gibbs watched the lawyer stop his pacing to speak pointedly into his phone. He looked the man up and down, trying to figure out what Todd had seen in the guy. Or how Tony could have been best friends with someone as slick and shallow as Adler. Someone who lacked the very fundamentals of character. Integrity. Bravery. Honesty. Loyalty.

DiNozzo wasn't very good with betrayal – on any level. Adler's big mouth had wrecked that friendship, but it was his cheating on and then dumping Kate that had turned Tony's anger white-hot and made Gibbs step in to steer his young agent away from vengeance.

This betrayal, cooked up by Sterling and taken to extremes by Shepard and Sacks, seemed to be one too many. Gibbs had seen the rage in Tony's face in Abby's lab. He'd heard it in the snap of his voice. The story he'd told in the conference room hadn't filled in all the gaps, but Gibbs knew he might never get the whole story out of his teammate. This was far more than a personal betrayal, more than embarrassment or pain, more even than Tony looking out for Abby, someone else he regarded as a little sister. This was all that plus the suspicion that all of it – from Kate's death to Sterling's hiring to Tony's treatment at the FBI – was part of something far worse.

Ziva. Ari. Kate's death and Ziva's sudden appearance. DiNozzo had to be wrong. They couldn't be tied up with Sterling. The FBI had been adamant that Haswari was on their side. Double agent. Loyal to his father and to Mossad while he worked Hamas for Intel. Wrong on all counts. Was this, this 'task force', led so incompetently by Sacks some kind of cover-up? A way to throw around the blame that was smeared all of the Hoover Building? Had Sacks said something during DiNozzo's interrogation?

Whatever kind of crap Sacks was shoveling, that mess was all behind them, Katelyn Todd locked away with all of Gibbs' other losses. His other mistakes. Ziva wasn't a replacement, but she deserved her own chance to grow beyond her powerful father's reach. Gibbs could give that to her. Tony would come around. After the pain of this situation settled, after he had time to come to terms with Sacks and wreak just enough payback to cover his wounds, DiNozzo would fall in line. Gibbs' Senior Field Agent, following Gibbs' lead.

The way it should be.

Adler ended one phone call and made another, his voice low but his body language trumpeting a kind of fierce focus that Gibbs only ever experienced when his team found the lead, followed the clues, and knew they were close on the heels of their suspect. The lawyer was – apparently – working hard for DiNozzo. But, Gibbs shook his head, still. Lawyers. A call to JAG he'd have understood, but handing this information over to a beltway bandit? 

He stared down at his watch. Four AM. They'd been at the hospital for more than an hour. Time to get this show on the road. To drag DiNozzo from Pitt's mother-henning. To send Adler on his way with his recordings and Tony's suspicions. To corner Fornell at his house before the guy could hide behind the gray stone walls of the FBI. And to lay it all out in front of Shepard and demand an explanation.

It was time for Gibbs to take over.

\- - - - - - 

Tony had expected Steve to tag along. To follow him and Brad to the hospital so that he could wring every last detail about Tony's injuries from the doctor and pester Brad and the techs to move Tony ahead of others who were bleeding or broken or far more in need of care than Tony was. Steve would want as much ammunition as possible before dawn broke in Washington and the players started piling up roadblocks and burying this mess under spin and red tape.

And Tony was happy to help him get it. To let Adler loose with the facts and the suppositions and let the lawyer decide how to use it. Tony had insisted on one thing – that it was the raw data that Adler would forward to the DOJ. To the Attorney General. The recordings of Tony's deposition. The medical records. A copy of Gibbs' evidence reports. No threats of a civil suit or demands for any kind of settlement based on the abridgment of Tony's civil rights. Adler wanted his share of the money, sure, but what appealed even more to the Beltway lawyer was the name he could make on this case. Whistle-blowers were media darlings in the heady atmosphere of the federal government. By the look on Adler's face and the gleam in his eye when he left to make some calls, he was already scheduling his talk show appearances.

All Tony wanted was to deliver a wake-up call to SecNav and the Secretary of Defense. A Gibbs' slap of stellar proportions. The FBI was already targeting someone in the upper echelons of power, but instead of treating it like a priority, they'd stuck the job with a low-level bureaucrat like Sacks who couldn't bully a 5th grader. People were being played in more than one agency – it was going to take a real powerhouse to untangle all the webs to get to the red-headed spider.

Tony glanced at the nearly empty IV bag hanging on his left. Brad had insisted on a strong hit of antibiotics before he let Tony go with a dozen prescriptions. The MRI had shown that the two puncture wounds hadn't done much internal damage. Missed the kidney. Tony had figured that out when he wasn't laid out on the floor a couple of hours ago. Lots of stitches later and the grim look had finally left Brad's face. Unfortunately, it came back with a vengeance when he did a scan of Tony's neck and chest. The soft tissue swelling around his trachea was what caused the slight wheeze the doctor's educated ear had detected. Tony had admitted the less-than-gentle handling of Sacks' buddy in the interrogation room, and Adler had rushed out to get copies made of the test results to add to his growing pile of evidence.

So, against Brad's muttered disapproval, Tony would be checking out soon. The thought of going to his own apartment, locking the door, stripping off his clothes and standing under the hottest shower he could dial up until all the dirt, grime, betadine, and memories were washed down the drain was taking on wet-dream proportions.

Unfortunately, somebody else had tagged along to the hospital. Brad had managed to close the door between them, to insist on a patient's privacy while being examined, but Tony had seen the muscle jumping in Gibbs' jaw, the doubt and growing impatience clouding the man's eyes. Even through the closed door of his exam room, Tony could detect the particular scents of coffee and sawdust coupled with a large helping of anger and regret. Gibbs was waiting. Waiting for what, Tony had no idea.

His boss had been supportive. Completely loyal. Willing to let Tony lead.

It was not going to last.

Gibbs' protective streak had definitely been activated. Hell, the man would deny himself food, water, even air if it would help one of his people. His Gibbs-lettes, as Abby called them. But besides his stubborn insistence on treating Tony, Abby, McGee – all more than grown-up – like they were his weird, awkward pack of puppies, the man had a bone-deep need to be in charge. To call the shots. To face the enemy. According to Gibbs, he not only knew better, he was the one with better tactics, with enough Intel, with the 'right stuff' to take on the higher ups. He'd call it 'watching Tony's six,' but, in truth, it was Gibbs' inner assumption that if he wanted something done right he'd have to do it himself.

And that the only secrets worth keeping were his own.

Tony draped his right arm over his eyes and tried not to feel trapped between Gibbs' best intentions and Shepard's manipulations. Snapshots fluttered in his mind's eye. Shepard's flirtatious smiles as she walked slowly down the stairs, drawing all eyes to herself. Her whispered confrontations with Gibbs, standing too close, one hand on his arm. Yeah, Gibbs had blustered and bleated about her interference, how she was wasted in a political position and should have stayed in the field. All that added up to was fond memories of a young woman who had garnered both Gibbs' respect and his passion.

Compared to all that, Tony's insistence on going above her head, on directing his attack towards the only people with the power to investigate – or control – the head of a federal agency, wasn't going to weigh too heavily in Gibbs' mind.

He needed another ally. Someone Gibbs might listen to. Someone who could play the "trusted old friend" card just as easily as Shepard. Tony needed his phone, his clothes, his independence, first. And then he needed Fornell.

The door to the exam room opened. Gibbs stood in the doorway, his face barely human, cold and brutal and filled with the promise of retribution.

Tony sat up, knocking the IV pole to the floor. "What? What is it? Is everyone –" He couldn't get the question out. Who'd been targeted now? Ducky? McGee? Tony felt all the blood rush from his head and he wobbled on the narrow bed.

"McGee called. Sterling is dead."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some swearing.

-6-

Fornell was waiting for them. Not Sacks. Not Ducky. Not a jumble of NCIS and FBI well-wishers. Just Fornell. Alone.

The trench coat hung around him like a shroud, soft and limp, its crisp line lost in the sagging of Fornell's shoulders and the aura of funeral mourner that grayed out skin and hair and clothes and seeped into the warm, moist air.

Be careful what you wish for, Tony reminded himself. He stopped short after turning the corner into the hospital lobby and watched Gibbs sail on by and into Fornell's troubled waters. Taking a deep breath, he clutched the phone in his pocket and considered his options.

A showdown between these two – here and now – was not going to accomplish anything except riling Gibbs up even further. Gibbs was already squaring his shoulders, lifting his chin to insist on his dominance. His presence expanded far beyond his flapping coat and the piercing stare of those blue eyes. Maybe it was a military thing, something they taught you in Basic. Lesson One: if a Marine is in the room, he is always in charge. 

Tony wished he could learn it.

Protective Gibbs had turned into Gibbs-in-charge somewhere between Tony disappearing behind the exam room door and McGee's call. It wasn't exactly a surprise. There were still threats out there – threats to his people if someone could reach Sterling within the locked doors of NCIS. Gibbs wouldn't settle for following anyone's lead while there was still a target on their backs. Unfortunately, the Bossman was looking for answers 'out there' instead of right in his back pocket where he should be. And Gibbs' brand of 'march in and demand answers' wasn't going to fly. Not this time.

And there wasn't much Tony could do to stop him.

Adler hurried up behind Tony and stayed, watchful and ready, beside him. "Problem?"

"You have no idea." Tony squeezed the bridge of his nose, eyes shut, and began flipping through his memories for an idea. A scenario where Gibbs tearing Fornell a new one didn't shove Fornell back into defensive lock-step with his FBI brethren. Tony needed Fornell. He needed what Fornell could give him: access. The videos of Tony's interrogation, if they existed, and a nudge in the right direction for sources. And, depending on how close the man was to Sacks and his taskforce, Fornell was the one who could tell him if Shepard was the Fibbies' only target, or if there was someone else – some less visible. A more deadly spider waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Tony's internal slideshow stopped on a still of Fornell in another trench coat. Another Mexican stand-off with Gibbs, both alpha males growling and posturing. Air Force One. A trip in a body-bag so Ducky could hurry off with the body…

One hand patted Adler's chest to keep him in place and Tony strode forward.

"Where's the body?" he snapped.

Fornell barely glanced at him before locking stares with Gibbs again. "On its way to the FBI morgue."

"Damn it, Fornell. Didn't we make it clear enough that the FBI needs to keep its hands off my agents and my cases?" Gibbs moved in, chest to chest with the other agent. 

Just as Tony figured, Gibbs' attack brought up Fornell's chin and he pushed back for a counterattack.

"Yeah, because you're doing so well so far. You let a jerk like Sterling mess with your evidence, assault your tech, and now he's dead while in your custody. Great job, Agent Gibbs!"

Tony had thought he'd done a good job shoring up his store of patience and diplomacy while he'd rested in Brad's tender care, but the anger was still there, just beneath the surface. And these two, butting heads and peeing on their territory just to show everyone that they owned it was doing nothing for his balance.

Lips peeling back from his teeth, Tony marched into the fight.

"Hey!" His voice was low but cutting. One hand on each man's shoulder, Tony shoved the two apart. "It's a hospital, not a war zone. Break up the dog pile."

Jerking his head towards Adler, Tony strode into the parking lot, barely waiting for the automatic door to slide open in front of him. He heard them following him. He knew he'd made himself their new target. Fine. Nothing new there. That's what Tony did. Step in. Take the head-slaps. Zip up into the body bag and zip up his mouth. He raised his phone to his ear.

"Hey, Ducky. Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." He couldn't help flipping his glance towards the older men, neither one of whom had bothered to ask him what his test results had been. "Brad gave me some antibiotics and stitched me up. Yes, I'd be glad for you to look at it, but we've got another problem right now." Eying Fornell's frown and the virtual steam coming from Gibbs' ears, Tony hurried. "Can you hang on a minute? Thanks."

Tony held his phone out to the side, hoping Ducky's hearing was as good as ever. "Sterling's body is on its way to the FBI morgue, right?"

Fornell's eyes narrowed. "Yes. I-"

Tony didn't let him finish. He turned to Gibbs. "And you want Ducky to do the autopsy, right?"

"Don't be an idiot, DiNozzo."

"Sounds like a yes to me." Tony put on his best 'trying to get the children to do what's best for them' face. "If you'll think back to the beginning of our beautiful friendship, you'll remember that there is a way to compromise and give each of you what they want." He raised the phone to his ear again. "Ducky? Can you get to the FBI morgue to assist in the autopsy of Mister Sterling?"

He listened, opened his mouth, closed it. Listened again. Nodded. Opened his mouth. Until finally, "Ducky? Thank you. I was just going to ask about Abby. I'm glad to know she's with you. And to answer your questions in order: Yes, he's dead. Yes, it happened at NCIS. No, I don't know what happened. Yes, McGee is okay. And, yes, Gibbs and Fornell are about to need the Emergency Room we're standing in front of if they can't learn to use their inside voices."

Nodding once more, Tony hung up and turned to the furious men beside him. "Ducky is on his way. He'll need your clearance to get him through the doors, Fornell."

Fornell was easy. It wasn't complicated with him. He knew Sacks had screwed the pooch with Tony. He knew that the FBI was about to come under scrutiny at the hands of Adler and his contacts. As long as Gibbs could be contained, Fornell would fall into line. He might steam and huff and call DiNozzo names, but Tony could handle that. He had been handling that from Fornell for years. One more day, Tony reminded himself. After that? After Tony's Intel and Adler's red tape splattered all over Pennsylvania Avenue, well, who knows? The wreckage of NCIS might be in Tony DiNozzo's rearview mirror by the end of the day.

"Sounds like a plan," Fornell muttered, turning away to make his call.

Tony, ignoring the laser-beam glare from Gibbs' eyes, trapped Adler beside him with a hand on his elbow. "I'll have Ducky email his findings to you. You good for now?"

"Better than good, Tony. And, thanks, again, for calling me."

Before Adler could scurry off, Tony yanked him back. "Don't screw this up, Steve."

His ex-buddy, ex-brother looked up at him, fiercely honest. "I may be an asshole, Tony, but I'm a smart asshole. Let me do this."

Tony let the snapshots of Adler's friendship flip up and over the more recent ones of his betrayal. "Watch your back. Sterling had answers – and now he's dead."

"You don't think-"

"Yes, I do think. Get somewhere safe. Surrounded by people you trust. And stay there."

"Worry about yourself, Tony." Adler pulled his sleeve from Tony's hold, smoothing out the creases. "This isn't my first rodeo – that's why you called me, right?" At Tony's nod the lawyer smiled grimly. "Protecting myself is second nature to me. It sounds like something you need to learn, though."

"Ouch," Tony muttered, deadpan. "My job, Steve."

"I'm serious. You've already been targeted once. Now she has even more reason to make you a priority." Steve shrugged. "Hey, I'm going to need your pretty face to convince some of the shinier brass of the dangers." The ex-frat boy grabbed Tony's hand and held on, suddenly sober. "Stay alive."

"I plan on it."

Tony watched Adler to his car and then out of sight. As much as their friendship had been battered, he hoped he hadn't dug Adler's grave by calling him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Swift and silent, as always in his approach, Gibbs had obviously had enough. He did not like being ignored. Being sidelined. Over his head or behind his back were two places his agents had learned to never go with Gibbs. Tony had followed the man's rules – written and unwritten – for years. He'd dropped investigations. He'd covered up for Blackadder. He'd brought McGee along with pokes and prods and all the necessary nastiness that would save the man future humiliation at less than friendly hands. And he'd accepted Ziva, hiding his doubts, his anger at this… this foreign agent, this accomplice, dumping all of her stuff on his murdered partner's desk.

He didn't want to have it out with Gibbs. Not in a hospital parking lot. Not when he was already exhausted and hurt and furious. Hell, Tony never wanted to have it out with Gibbs. He respected the man, admired the agent, and would gladly follow him into any battle anywhere. But this time he couldn't. This time, Gibbs' blindness was likely to lead them down convoluted rabbit-trails and right into the minefields that Shepard had been busy preparing for them.

"What happened to 'we'll do this your way, Tony'? What happened to 'whatever you need'? Didn't you say those things to me back in the conference room? Didn't you promise that you'd have my six?" Tony kept his voice low and steady, refusing to plead or to shout. "I need you to open your eyes, Boss, to see the shit-creek we're up, not off running your own game while I keep trying to get your attention."

"We don't have time for this, DiNozzo-" Gibbs started to turn back towards Fornell, to his car, to anywhere, apparently, that was away from this confrontation with his Senior Field Agent.

Tony didn't touch him. He didn't grab an arm or take hold of Gibbs' shoulder like he would anyone else. That would end badly and Tony had taken enough hits for the team this time.

_"Jethro."_

Gibbs stopped. Motionless, he stood with his back to Tony for a long moment while the name echoed in the empty parking lot. Tony kept his gaze in the middle of Gibbs' back, dead center, aiming for the man's heart. Maybe Shepard and Ziva had the right idea. To bypass Leroy Jethro Gibbs' rock-hard stubbornness, go for the gut.

"We used to be friends. Partners. You used to trust me." Tony chewed on the words, livid that he was forced down to their level. To calling on Gibbs' friendship. His feelings, damn it. He shouldn't have to do this. Tony's reasoning – his insight and investigative skills - should be damn-well good enough. Anger spiking, a wave of frigid cold swept through him, tightening every muscle in jaw, hands, and shoulders. "God damn it, Gibbs, why will you not listen to me for a change?"

Gibbs turned and Tony waited for it. Watched for it. Still seething, still shivering with the ferocity of his rage beneath the dimming parking lot lights, Tony was stuck in place, feet frozen to the asphalt. Until he knew, until Gibbs let that blank mask fall away to reveal what was underneath, he couldn't move.

"You think I'm not listening?"

Tony moved closer, sparing one quelling glance at Fornell over Gibbs' shoulder.

"You're not, Gibbs. You can't. You can't seem to stop seeing Ziva as a lost little girl running from her nasty father. Or Shepard as the woman that got away. Open your eyes, damn it. She's playing you. They're playing you. Every word, every gesture, every flirty glance from Shepard or invitation to join Ziva in her put-downs and arrogance draws a line in the sand with them on one side and the law – and me and McGee – on the other."

He closed his eyes, willing the rage back, behind his walls, tearing at the stupid photos his mind threw up to remind him of all the ways Gibbs had changed, had retreated from his partnership with Tony that had been offered, unflinching, when the man recruited him from Baltimore. Not now. Those arguments, those pains and slights were past and had to stay there. This could not be about Tony, it had to be about Gibbs. About the danger the man was leading them into. About the truth of this moment, of Shepard's obvious treachery and Ziva's lies.

"Gibbs, Sterling is dead. Who do you think could pull that off within NCIS? Under the noses of some of the best investigators in the business? No one. No one except a trained assassin with someone much higher up covering her tracks. Who could have made sure Sterling was hired in the first place, and then set him up where he could do the most harm? Who, Gibbs?"

"You're wrong, DiNozzo. Shepard is no traitor. She was a damned good field agent – I trained her myself." Gibbs' voice rose, snapping out hard enough to leave more bruises on Tony's body. "You think I'm an idiot? Can't think past my dick? I think you have me confused with you, DiNozzo." Eyes flashing, Gibbs stepped in close – too close – dangerous and deadly and always ready to remind Tony of it.

This time, there would be no backing down.

"I didn't say she was a traitor, Gibbs. But she is a criminal. I don't know how she got her appointment at her age, with her lack of background in anything but international ops, but I've got Adler looking into it. And we are not going to like what we find." Tony stood tall and answered his boss, his mentor. "Insult me all you want, call me an idiot, a frat boy, I've heard all that and worse from you over the past few months. If it was going to make me run away and cry I would have done it long ago," he snarled, giving Gibbs a good, long look up and down. "You'll never measure up in the put-down department, Gibbs, your heart isn't in it. So give up trying to push me away. I'm not going."

Red-faced, furious, Gibbs raised one hand but Tony was ready for it.

"No. Don't do it," he warned, his voice barely audible. "Not now. You aren't allowed to use those head-slaps right now. Right now, we're equals. Two men, two good investigators who have bigger aims than to tear each other down. Or, we should have." Tony made a show of taking a deep breath and dropping his shoulders. "Isn't it the truth we're supposed to be looking for? The real truth, not some spin a DC bureaucrat wants to put on this? Not some personal truth that we'd like to substitute for reality?" Tony let some of the desperation that clung to his spirit bleed through into his voice. "Isn't that what you want? To put the screws to the bad guys and protect this country and the men and women who serve it? Because if it isn't, you should tell me. And I'll pursue this on my own."

Gibbs, stuck with his hand half-raised, half-lowered, dropped his mask. And there before Tony stood an aging man, almost as tired as he was. Confused. Angry. Out of his element. The earth had shifted beneath Gibbs' feet and people had slipped out of line. Out of character. Out of the sturdy wooden boxes he'd so carefully created for each of them. Jenny Shepard. Ziva David. Tony DiNozzo. Tony could see it on his face, read it in his body language. He was almost sorry he'd started all this.

But, then again, he hadn't.

"I didn't start this, Gibbs. I didn't send Ari here with a bug up his ass about you and your team. About Kate. I didn't target Kate. I wouldn't – I – " He fumbled for a way past the looming grief, the loss that felt like it had just happened yesterday. He found it in his anger. "I didn't accept Ziva with fake grumpiness and a pretend head-slap. And I didn't rush into Chip Sterling's clutches with my eyes wide shut. But I'll damned well finish it," Tony whispered. "With or without you."


	7. Chapter 7

-7-

"You should listen to the man, Gibbs."

Fornell's words broke the spell and Tony and Gibbs stepped away from each other, suddenly aware that they were having this discussion in the parking lot of a major hospital where surveillance cameras caught every movement. 

"If you want my advice, which, I'll admit," Fornell held up both hands in mock supplication, "you probably don't, we should take this somewhere private." The FBI agent shrugged. "I honestly didn't come here for a confrontation, but you make it so damn easy."

"It's a gift," Gibbs growled, still trying to spear Tony with his laser-vision, that slight frown wrinkling his forehead.

"Okay." Tony rubbed at his throat. "By right of being in the same clothes for going on four days now, I call dibs. My apartment. Should be okay." Shepard's next move would probably be towards Gibbs. She'd wait at his house, ambush him among his closest, dearest memories. Remind him that, once, she was part of them. Even if she didn't make that move, Gibbs' house was Grand Central Station these days, everyone stopping by for bourbon and a chat. Tony'd been there, sitting on those steps a time or two, trying to pry away the high-functioning mute mask and get to the real guy beneath it.

It was a strange and bizarre dynamic of Team Gibbs: the Boss was unapproachable in the office, god-like and all-powerful, plus wound tighter than an overturned jack-in-the-box, but, find the man at home and in the right mood and he'd cook you a steak, share some brews, and let his high-and-tight hair down. And the man would not lock his front door. If Tony had as many ex-wives as his boss he'd be spending his entire paycheck on security systems.

Tony's own apartment was sacrosanct. Untouched by either teammate or boss. Tony had made sure to paint its whereabouts and ambiance with so many different brushes over the years that only a close look at his employment forms would reveal its location. Tales of busted hot water heaters and annoying neighbors kept them from asking, and Tony's reputation as an 'over sharer' made them all believe that he had no secrets to keep. As investigators, they regularly kicked rule number eight – or was it three? - to the curb and stomped all over it.

Tim had picked Tony up at a Metro station three stops away when his car had been stolen – and then totaled. Gibbs met him at the coffee shop six blocks away. Only Kate had been profiler enough to figure him out – coming by with coffee and breakfast burritos one morning after her best buddy and bomb making roommate had nearly killed them all.

God, he missed her.

Gibbs knew. He always knew. But that was okay because Gibbs didn't care. Personal lives, hidden stashes of good taste, or a hundred baby-mamas screaming for support wouldn't cause Gibbs a moment's thought.

Tony waited a second for the bare jerk of Gibbs' head that might have been a nod and then moved quickly for the car. 

"Mind if I ride with you two? I left my car at NCIS."

That pulled Tony to a stop just as his hand gripped the passenger door. "What?"

Fornell – still grey and grumpy – had a little life behind his eyes now. A little spark. Humor, anger, or maybe spite, Tony really didn't care. But he'd got himself to Gibbs and Tony without leaving a trail. Interesting.

Of course, Gibbs didn't answer. He just got into the driver's seat and started the car, letting Fornell and Tony sort themselves out, not bothering to check if limbs were tucked inside or doors were closed before he took off. Tony felt a hand on his shoulder before they left the parking lot.

"For what it's worth, DiNut- ah, DiNozzo," Fornell was leaning forward between the two front seats, wide eyes on the road as if he couldn't look away, "I wish I could have been there to rein in Sacks and his pets. Pretty sure you've figured out by now that they kept me away. Made sure I was busy elsewhere."

Gibbs growled, "Doesn't make it right."

"Let's all agree that very little about this is 'right,' and move on," Tony seethed through clenched teeth. The newly stitched wounds on his right side were pressed against the door by Gibbs' usual active war-zone type of driving. Not fun. "My question is, when did you find out about Sacks' task force, and who the hell thought it was a good idea to put that imbecile in charge?"

"Funny," Fornell's grip on Tony's shoulder tightened as Gibbs executed a left turn between two speeding FedEx delivery vans, "but the higher ups seemed to think that my close relationship with NCIS might color my reasoning so they kept me out of the loop. It didn't occur to them that having someone on the task force that could get an actual answer out of you, DiNozzo, might be a good idea."

He just might have. Given up a real answer, that is. Tony tried to imagine the scenario – Fornell across the table in interrogation instead of Sacks. Cool composure rather than touchy, humorless demands. Gibbs' friend instead of an unknown guy with a chip on his shoulder and no pretense whatsoever that he and Tony were on the same side. Sacks had put Tony's back up from word one, but his and Fornell's past wasn't exactly filled with fluffy bunnies, either.

Tony shook his head. Did it matter? Fornell wouldn't have put Tony into public holding, nor would he have sicced his huge sidekick on him, but the bruises and wounds would heal. And Tony had learned a lot more from Sacks than Fornell would ever have let slip. "Let's skip the 'what ifs' and get to the point. Who's the target? Is it just Shepard or are there others." Tony was finished beating around the bush. "And how long do we have until the Fibbies fall down on NCIS and scoop up everyone still standing?"

Fornell sat back heavily, air whooshing from his lungs. "That's not the biggest problem. There's another hand in this investigation – it didn't start from the Hoover Building."

Tony wrenched around so that he could watch Fornell from the front seat. The agent was staring at Gibbs, now, holding the man's eyes in the rearview mirror, patches of red high on either cheek. Embarrassment? Anger? Both? He was just opening his mouth to demand more than the little hints and clues Fornell was spilling out in dribs and drabs when Gibbs beat him to it.

"Who?"

"CIA," Fornell sighed. "Apparently, they have a bone to pick with your new director. About her ties to foreign nationals and her maneuvering to get this position." His voice grew sharper, as if it was a weapon he could use to cut to the truth. "And what she intends to do with it."

"I knew it," Tony snapped, wincing has he flung himself back against his seat. "I knew there was more to this than the usual DC politics."

Gibbs' bitter words ran roughshod over Tony's exclamation. "And you know this, how?"

The chuckle that rumbled from the backseat was nasty and dark. "You are a piece of work, Gibbs. Here's your kid, sitting right next to you, a few new holes in his skin thanks to the bitch and her strategies and you can't keep yourself from rushing to her defense. What the hell is wrong with you? Were you not listening or are you just too stupid to live?"

Gibbs jerked the wheel to the right, pulling in behind a taxi idling at the corner across the street from Tony's apartment building. Knuckles whitening, he stared straight ahead, teeth clenched. "I am getting damned sick and tired of you two telling me how stupid I am."

"Then pull your head out of your ass and listen up," Fornell shot back, leaning forward again. "Shepard is on CIA's radar because of some pretty shifty crap she's been in on concerning arms dealers. Poking in her nose where it doesn't belong. There have been Ops compromised and agents killed with the sticky fingers of Mossad all over them." The words tumbled out too fast for Gibbs to edge in a response. "She's been linked with both Ari and Eli David – and, yes, I mean physically linked, you idiot, and has taken to visiting Davenport at his townhouse in Park City. While his wife is elsewhere. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together and get four."

When Gibbs shifted, one hand on the door, Fornell grabbed onto his coat. "I have the whole damned file, Gibbs. I have pictures. Reports. The CIA has been aware of her for over a year, but, you know that bunch, they couldn't care less who's screwing who unless it impacts their own squirrely strategies. And now, it does. And she's done." He let go and threw himself backward. "She just doesn't know it yet."

Tony watched it sink in past Gibbs' barriers, watched the man absorb the truth from Fornell that he never would from Tony. And that was okay, too. Just as long as he did it. Woke up. Started looking beyond his past, beyond the dreams and memories and into the reality of today. For a man who spent every ounce of energy denying his emotions, he sure could be strung along by them by a pretty face, a smile, a tear, the well-rehearsed catch in a voice.

And, just as Tony watched the barriers come down, they stiffened and rose again. Blue eyes narrowed, ice forming a solid shell around Gibbs' thoughts. Rule eight cut both ways.

Tony closed his eyes, snapshots spread out across his memories. There it was in black and white. Scenes. Faces. Blows. Kill shots. False smiles and stabs in the back. He and his boss weren't that different after all. They both distrusted words. Words spoken by friends or barked by enemies; smooth words whispered in the dark, dramatic statements read in front of cameras or shouted from campaign trails. Words spoken with utter sincerity across an interrogation table. No, words weren't going to do it.

Gibbs would have to see it for himself.

Tony was on the sidewalk and moving across the street towards his apartment building before the other two stepped out of the car. If Shepard was watching, if she had her favorite assassin waiting for him, fine. Unlike her brother, Ziva was no sniper – she liked to work close, where she could twist the knife and feel her target's blood on her hands. Let her come. Maybe then Gibbs would believe him.

He'd almost expected the hand on his arm, the force of the older man's grip making Tony stumble and lurch between two parked cars, setting off the alarm of the black BMW and pulling every eye on the street towards them.

He didn't expect it to be Fornell.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Geez, you are as bad as Gibbs with your delusions of being impervious to a gunshot to the head." The FBI agent's face was so close Tony felt the spittle on his cheek. "She's painted a target on your back as big as Texas, DiNozzo! Take a damned precaution once in a while!"

Raising one hand to deliberately wipe his face, Tony blinked. "I didn't know you cared, Toby. Now get the hell off me."

"I will if you promise to stop acting like a suicidal jackass." Fornell was out of breath, panting, and mad – scared - enough to spit nails. "And to wait a minute so I can apologize – again."

Tony pushed off on the Beamer, telegraphing his movements to the angry Fibbie so that he would back off. Standing between the cars, a step from the sidewalk, his wide-eyed doorman, and his Boss who was explaining the situation to a half-dressed bald guy with a key fob in his hand, Tony crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't remember you apologizing the first time."

"Yeah, well, this is about what you're going to find up in your apartment," Fornell shot back. "I was at least allowed on the search team, so I didn't let them get too destructive." He dropped his hands. "Sorry."

Tony let his gaze meander up across the pointed red brick of the gentrified row houses, allowed himself a moment to notice the cornices and moldings, the well-tended window-boxes, the thick draperies and blinds behind the sound-modulating glass until he found his apartment. The blinds hanging crookedly in his front room were the only clue that all was not well in Villa DiNozzo.

And the shadow that crossed behind them.

Fornell didn't miss it either. Both men were up the front stairs, guns drawn, before Gibbs clued in on their actions and followed them. Tony's legs were longer – and he was about twenty years younger – but he was working off of exhaustion and pain and rage and Gibbs was right beside him when they got to the top of the stairs. They stepped to each side of the door, just like they had been doing for years, movements parallel and perfectly balanced. Tony tried the handle, scowling to find it unlocked and the two nodded, ready.

"Federal agents! Freeze!" They hurled the door open and moved in, Tony low, Gibbs high, covering each other and the room beyond.

Tim McGee, mouth open like the fish in the bowl he was holding, paled but, thankfully, he did not drop Kate onto the scratched and dented hardwood floor.

"Boss! Tony!"

"Oh for…" 

"Agent Fornell?"

Tony rolled his eyes and kicked the door shut behind them. "Perfect," he muttered.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's more than slightly possible that this is AU. And not for Ziva or Jenny fans. Just my twisted view of what might have been.

-8-

The bathroom door clicked shut, soft and gentle, and Tony leaned against it, forehead to the wood, hands flat on either side. Maybe if he stayed here a while, his eyes closed, just breathing, the world outside would go on without him. The men ranged around his apartment, well-meaning friends and colleagues, would stop touching his stuff in an effort to help put his life back together. The tangled web of a vengeful and powerful woman would dry up and blow away.

Unlikely, he reminded himself. Only in the worst movies would the hero take care of his problems with one shot, one whispered phone call to the Feds, and hand-wave the consequences with a pithy remark, ignoring the blood and brain matter spattered on his suit and walk off into the sunset. Or the shower.

Tony thumped his head once on the door and then used both hands to push himself upright. Sweatpants, briefs, and shirt hit the floor. He kicked his way past the bottles and packages that had been tossed aside by heavy-handed FBI types and stood in the shower, head tipped back to catch the first spray of cold water that burst from his showerhead. The shock did what he hoped it would – it woke him up. It shattered the gray listlessness that had congealed around his spirit and threatened to pull him into apathy.

He was so tired. Brain, body, and spirit, Tony had nothing left.

Let someone else handle it. Give Adler free rein to spike the SecNav's intentions, to open the curtains on Shepard's machinations and underhanded dealings. Paint the target on NCIS with neon colors and let the boys at the CIA take her down. Open the floodgates and walk away, flashbulbs and scrutiny and fall-out behind him.

It was tempting. Very tempting.

Skin tingling, Tony lowered his head as the water warmed, as the scents of his spilled soaps and colognes and lotions mingled in the warm mist and rose to cradle him in the familiar. Eyes closed, he couldn't see the wreckage. Ears filled with the hiss of the water, he couldn't hear the men out in his apartment, still arguing. Still picking apart the facts that Fornell and McGee had offered. The 'what-ifs' and 'should-have-dones' and 'I-can't-believes.'

But the snapshots in Tony's mind wouldn't let him rest. Abby's exhausted face. Ducky's fierce protection. The spark of hatred in Shepard's eyes when he called her out. Yes, Tony could walk away, but that would leave his friends – his family – behind. In danger. Vulnerable.

That McGee managed to keep hold of Kate's fishbowl while Tony and Gibbs rushed him had been a miracle. The second miracle had come pretty much right after when McGee had turned to Tony and apologized.

"Tony. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you about Ziva. And I'm really sorry that I told her so much about you. Honestly, I thought that it was harmless. That she was just trying to get to know us all, getting to know her new team."

The guy had practically imploded with guilt and blame, eyes big and round like Tony hadn't seen them since McGee had first teamed up with them. Beneath Tim's sincerity, Tony had noticed the paleness of his skin, the way the corners of his eyes were puckered as if he'd seen things – things that had been there all along, but he'd willfully ignored. Ugly things.

Tony knew about that abyss McGee had peeked into. The Darkness of the human soul. He'd been a cop for over a decade and that came with a full access double platinum pass. He'd seen parents destroy their children. Men carve up women and display the wreckage with pride. Tony had held a partner in his arms as he bled out, shot six times by a 13-year-old amped up on meth. He'd delivered the blue, listless baby of a heroin addict in a back alley while she bucked and kicked and screamed for a fix.

He'd tasted his partner's life-blood on a rooftop under a pale blue sky.

McGee was a ones and zeros guy. Logic strands and algorithms and putting one piece next to each other until he could see the whole puzzle. Tony wasn't like that. Tony could follow a trail, sure, but he was much more likely to take a handful of puzzle pieces, squint at them for a moment, and then put them back in the box because he already knew what the picture was going to be. He didn't have the patience or perseverance of McGee, but Tim didn't have Tony's flashes of insight. Tim didn't have his life experience.

And that was a good thing.

Both men saw the black and white of crime and punishment, but Tim's were lined up in neat rows, evenly spaced like black ink on white paper, while Tony's blacks were deeper and darker, and his whites hurt his eyes, casting shadows that threatened to swallow his soul. 

It was Tim who had found Sterling – dead – in interrogation. Tim who'd done CPR. Tim who'd examined the recording equipment, found the stripped wires, and put together Ziva's movements and Shepard's cell calls and called Fornell with his evidence. Fornell took care of Tim the way he hadn't Tony. Whatever had led to that – Fornell's guilt or Tim's innocence or some presence from on-high - Tony was grateful.

He shook his head, flinging water from his hair. Probie had done a good job. He'd kept it together, kept it quiet, and had gotten the hell out of NCIS before Ziva could draw him any farther under her spell than she already had. He was proud of Tim. Yeah, he could have caught on sooner, realized that the Mossad agent had been playing him for Intel on his teammates instead of jumping on her bandwagon with gleeful abandon, but, water under the bridge, Tony figured, shrugging. McGee was here now. A little scared and a lot angry and if it had taken Fornell's words in his ear to get him on Tony's side, well, whatever.

Groping for the half-bottle of shampoo that the Fibbies had left him, Tony went through the motions, trying to pretend he wasn't washing out days of prison grime and the stickiness of Sack's spit. Just another shower on another day, flipping his mental files into some kind of organized chaos before he hit the bullpen with a snap in his step and a smile on his face. The bullpen which just happens to be his living room. Where Fornell was using Tony's laptop and a jump drive to give Gibbs enough food for thought to choke on. Where they were expecting Abby and Palmer with breakfast and Ducky with the results of Chipper's autopsy in a couple of hours.

"Give it up, DiNozzo," he murmured to himself as he lathered up again. "Just another day this isn't. Not with a sullen Gibbs camped on your couch and Fornell lurking in the corner like a wallflower hoping for a dance." McGee was probably reorganizing Tony's underwear drawer, if only to put as much distance between him and the two lead agents as possible. "Still better than Sacks." He blew soap and water out of his mouth and reminded himself to keep his witty remarks unspoken unless he wanted his mouth washed out.

Something was settling in Tony's gut, cold and sharp and deadly. He'd felt it before – not often, but it was unmistakable when it came. This was what certainty felt like. This was knowing. Beyond words or explanations, outside of argument or evidence. Snapshots lined up one after another – poster-sized scenes captured for eternity in his memory. When his father came home from the hospital to stand silently in Tony's bedroom doorway. When the self-important Honor Corps tried to corner him in the gym at RMA. When he met his partner's eyes in Baltimore and saw the lies and corruption eating Danny's soul. 

When he first set eyes on Ziva David. Tony shut off the water and stood, his breathing shallow, his skin cooling as the water evaporated, his mind back in the bright orange bullpen.

Thoughts about Kate had still been bombarding him. Memories of her snark, her pointy elbows, and her arrogant dismissal. Of shared Sunday morning breakfasts after their runs. Of her beauty and poise and how close they'd come to breaking Rule 12 after a night of drinking before they collapsed into giggles and settled into a brother/sister love and rivalry that still left Tony breathless with grief. He'd hated seeing Kate become such a great investigator. He'd hated it because, watching her, day by day, he could see her deep-held faith dwindle and her eyes become colder, more suspicious. Less Katy.

It started after Ari. After the morgue. With Gerald's shattered shoulder and Kate's guilt. Gibbs might have turned into Captain Ahab, full of bluster and bad-temper, but Kate had gone quiet, her dark eyes absorbing each syllable like it was punishment rightly earned.

Pretending she was still there, sitting at her desk, smirking at him, had warmed Tony's soul during those first days after they'd lowered her into the ground. Making up ridiculous arguments he would never get to have with her. Funny undercover outfits she'd never be forced to wear. He remembered the smile on his face at her imagined outrage and that cherished voice huffing and puffing, utterly scandalized by one Tony DiNozzo. If he squeezed his eyes closed a little harder it was only because of the cold water dripping from his hair, not because of the weight of loss in his gut.

And, right through his warm memories, in had walked the woman intent on becoming Kate's replacement. Ziva David. Confident. Clever. Cunning. Where Tony's caustic and tasteless quips would have made Kate groan and threaten, play the waspish sister to his vulgar brother, Ziva simply caught each one and twisted, sending it back across the aisle with perfect aim and silky smooth delivery. Well taught. Well practiced. Not one honest or authentic response among them.

If Tony wore the mask of a clown, Ziva's disguise was a polished, perfect work of art. To Tim, she was a stranger in a strange land, someone he could help. To Gibbs, a waif-like child, hurt by an ogre of a father and his politics. But to Tony, Ziva couldn't seem to settle, to choose a persona and stick with it. Seductress. Superior. Partner. Mystery woman. There she'd stood, right in the middle of Tony's make-shift family, dangerous and deadly. Whispering in their new director's ear. Picking apart the seams of their team to reweave it with her at the very center.

That moment, that first stand-off in the bullpen came back to him in full color, blacks and whites swirling, filling in with reds and blues. The green of her backpack. The bright yellow light coming in the window. Lean and sinuous, Ziva drew every eye to herself with her clipped speech and controlled movements. His first impression had never left him. Ziva was a snake, trained to kill, poised to dazzle her target into immobility so that she could strike.

And Jenny Shepard had given her a target. Gibbs. McGee. Tony. The MCRT. 

Tony stepped out of the shower. He remembered the chauffer at their home in New York. Pauly. He'd watch as a little boy dug in the soft soil of the garden, get dirty and wet and smelly as a little boy should. Pauly would be polishing the cars, washing them, keeping one eye on his Master's boy, laughing when Tony did something silly. He was short and swarthy and walked with a limp, but Tony loved him. Followed him around. Skipped and chattered to get his attention.

Once Tony tugged at him, pointing out a snake he'd come across, sunning itself on a rock. Shiny and slick. Pauly had held Tony close to his side, crouching in the shadows, suddenly tense. He'd turned to Tony, more serious than he'd ever been before, one gnarled hand taking up a trowel from a flowerbed.

"Remember this, Tony. If you see the snake, it is yours. Yours to kill or yours to leave alone. Maybe it is harmless. Maybe not. If you leave it and find it has killed the chickens, it is your fault, and we lose eggs. If you leave it and it bites your child, spreading poison, well, that is much worse." He'd risen with one smooth movement and shoved the blade of the trowel into the thick body of the snake just behind the head, killing it. Tony had cried out, upset that the pretty snake was dead. 

He'd never forgotten. The image was frozen in time among Tony's photo boxes. It might not have been Pauly's job, his responsibility to take care of a garden pest, but he hadn't called to the groundskeeper. The chauffer hadn't just shooed Tony away and gotten on with his job. Pauly had been the one to see the problem and had taken care of it. 

It was a lesson Tony DiNozzo had learned well.

Regardless of Fornell's file, the CIA's imperatives, or Adler's well-honed knives, this was going to be Tony's fight. It hadn't started that way. It had probably started years ago when little Jenny Shepard met Eli David's lethal children. When the combination of ambition, vengeance, and connections built up bit by bit with favors and intimacy and the small betrayals coalesced into international scheming. While the CNO and the Joint Chiefs dragged SecNav over the coals and tried to pin pretty Jenny's wings back, while Steve appeared on ZNN's early morning news shows with a tale of wrongdoing and some damned good innuendo, the bloodiest part of the battle would be Tony's responsibility.

Ziva.

He couldn't trust Gibbs to bring Ziva in. That was the bare naked truth. Whether or not he believed that she was responsible for Sterling's death, or Abby's attack, or, ultimately, for Kate's murder, Gibbs wouldn't be able to stop himself from offering her a way out. A way home. An escape. He would feel he owed it to her. And she knew it. 

Tony dried off, grabbing the jeans and sweater that he'd dragged from his bureau. Old friends. Soft black jeans worn at the hems. Thin grey sweater, warm and tightly knit, that wouldn't bunch when he added his shoulder holster. He crouched down, fumbling at the tile floor between the toilet and the sink, pressing the touch-plate that Sacks' minions had missed to grab his back-up piece, an ankle sheath, and his K-bar. He'd never been a boy scout, but he believed in being prepared, and if Senior had taught him one thing it was to hide his assets. Tony shoved a wad of bills into his back pocket and carefully set the tile back in place before he stood and finger combed his hair into some kind of order.

Good enough. The dark circles under his eyes and the scruff of beard would only add to his reputation as the weakling and wastrel that Ziva was so intent on seeing him as. Tony DiNozzo would appear to be no challenge – no threat - to a trained assassin. He smiled at his misty reflection. She could see him coming from a mile away and never worry, never take any precautions, never believe that he could – and would – end her.

Tony trusted Adler to talk. McGee to find electronic pathways to the Intel they needed. He trusted Fornell to keep Gibbs in check and make sure the other agencies were in the loop. Ducky to dot every I on Sterling's autopsy. Abby could find the smallest trace of evidence to back-up their suspicions and she and McGee were hell on wheels when they worked together. And, ultimately, Tony would have to trust Gibbs to face off with Shepard. To get to the truth. To see beyond the woman's heated smile and their shared past. To ask the right questions. To back her into a corner and keep her busy.

Because Tony needed her busy. Confronted. Her hands tied. There was only one person he trusted to see to the snake. To get close enough to put the blade of his knife to her throat.

Ziva was Tony's.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for the late update. This chapter... grrrr... Gibbs is making my life difficult.

-9-

Operation Lodestone. CIA Operative Trent Kort. Arms dealers. Long-term infiltration and extraction. Black Ops. Gibbs smashed his finger on the PgDn button as if he could put the laptop's eye out. 

Rene Benoit. La Grenouille. The Frog. International arms dealer, terrorist, high-browed low-life. His name had been murmured around the edges for years. Fingers up to the elbow in too many pies to count. He'd survived his bad deals, his rivals, inner struggles and outer attacks by being smarter, better connected, more patient. And now Kort was his right-hand man, leading Benoit towards making a deal with the CIA with every whispered word, every bungled operation, and every threat – real or imagined.

Gibbs had known people like Kort. Agents who infiltrated, picked apart the web of an assassin or terrorist or drug kingpin to squeeze inside and then make themselves invaluable to the organization. Agents who killed. Beat up innocents. Did cocaine or heroin to lay their cover on so thickly not even their mothers would recognize them. The dirt they rolled around in didn't wash off easily. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it made its way inward, damaging the way a man thought, tilting his internal scales of justice off-balance for good. Putting a toe over the line to put away a criminal was one thing, but hurling yourself bodily from a four-story window and hoping to walk away, dusting a few smudges off of your soul - that was something else.

He should know. He'd taken that long step fourteen years ago. He'd rushed right over the edge, screaming, finger on the trigger, and never looked back. And he was still paying the price.

Eyes half closed against his memories, Gibbs fought to put the stark words of Kort's report alongside his inner portrait of Jenny Shepard. Tried to stack up the data on either side of a scale, to weigh truth and lies, peering through the masks and feints, the agendas of a frustrated CIA agent and of a loyal, broken child.

According to Fornell's file, Jenny thought Benoit had killed her father, setting him up to look like a traitor first. Gibbs wondered which bothered Jenny the most. The woman he knew in Paris, the junior agent who had been hand-picked by the higher ups for Gibbs' team, was driven. Fiercely career-minded. Took on partners and assignments, lovers and friends, until she'd wrung what she needed out of them, and then walked away. She'd known she was out of her league with Gibbs and his team. Eyes wide open, she'd known all along that they needed a honey trap and she was it. And she didn't mind in the least using what God gave her to take down their targets and put her stiletto one rung higher on the ladder. Was it loyalty to her father that drove her, or pride? Pride in the Shepard name. In her legacy. Tainted by the Frog, by a man who'd used her father and then thrown him away?

Gibbs rubbed one hand over his face, willing away the black letters that swam in his mind's eye. Reports. Records. The assumptions of agents who weren't there, who didn't know, who hadn't seen with their own eyes a young woman testing the edges of her own soul. Finding the lengths she would go to do her job, her duty, and the lines she would not cross. In Paris, Russia, all throughout their European assignment, Jenny had struggled. Struggled with her orders, with the cold-blooded killing. It was sanctioned, necessary, vital to protect the freedom and lives of Americans and their allies, but that didn't make it easier. To look into another person's eyes and watch the life drain away, to feel the hot rush of blood pushed out by the last beat of a fluttering heart, and to know that this person was dead – gone – leaving family, friends, children alone because of the touch of your hands was never easy. 

Some agents couldn't handle it. Some needed distance. The distance of the sniper's scope. Of a satellite feed.

Teeth clenched, Gibbs scanned through the CIA's file on the Oshimida Op. Damn it. He'd never suspected. Never realized that Jenny had been so blind to Chernitskaya's threat. A woman. A lover. An innocent. Is that what she'd seen when she looked into those cold black eyes? 

Svetlana had been younger than her arms-dealer lover. Beautiful, all soft and sweet on the outside, covering a soul as black and sharp as any other killer's. Gibbs had taken care of the arms dealer, taken him out from his position on the roof opposite when the man stood at the window of their hotel room still sweaty and naked from sex. Jenny had been posted in the hotel as a chambermaid, gun ready under her tray as she knocked at the door not a moment later. Gibbs hadn't stayed in his sniper's perch long enough to watch her kill – never thought for a moment that he had to.

What had Svetlana said to her? Had she raised a tearful face, sobbing out her grief and sorrow? Had Jenny seen herself crouched there, beside her father's lifeless body? Was it a momentary flash of empathy, a connection that blindsided her into immobility? Had it been embarrassment or pride that had kept her from telling Gibbs? Or something else? She'd been better than he ever imagined – he hadn't noticed a thing wrong when she met him at the rendezvous point. When she pulled him into the bedroom. When she left the next morning with a sad smile and a few words of dismissal.

"I've requested a transfer," she'd said. "The Middle East desk. I'm tired of the cold." A shrug, a kiss on the cheek, and she'd been gone. 

Gibbs hadn't realized it was the end. Not just of the two of them as lovers, but of Jenny's undercover work. And when the two-by-four finally hit him over the head he figured she couldn't take it. That she'd found the lines she wouldn't cross and had taken a step back. Even though he'd judged her for it, for not being strong enough, for ending them, for ending their partnership in every way, he'd understood.

Every agent went through it – a few more than once. Gibbs had taken his own measure in the Marines, learned how to quiet the internal second-guessing, how to work through the Intel, the orders, and his own insights, and get the job done. And then put it aside. He opened his eyes and stared at the callused, scarred hands clenched on the computer sitting on his lap, and slowly and deliberately relaxed his hold. The rules had helped. Shannon had been his plumb-line, his anchor. She'd been what he measured his conscience against. By the time he'd met Jenny Shepard, he was a different man. He'd blown his self-imposed code to hell and back when he'd gone after Hernandez, fueled by blind rage, vengeance, and bottomless grief. The fuse had been lit by his girls' murder and doused by Hernandez' blood and brains exploding on a Mexican hillside.

Even now, years later, the rules hadn't completely healed the breach. Right and wrong pulled at him, justice and vengeance all tangled up together. Gibbs' drive to get closure for military men and women who had been victimized burned as hot as ever – his need to save others from the loss and pain and life-long heartache he lived with never faded. Never would. But Gibbs' descent into murder had left gashes in his soul. In his gut. And sometimes the darkness bled out and blinded him. Shifted his foundations. Took his focus off the law and sent him reeling. While his investigator's mind, his well-honed skills of observation and deduction faltered, his emotions, his knee-jerk reactions to protect, to avenge, took over. 

DiNozzo had nailed it. Gibbs' much vaunted gut, his inherent understanding of human behavior, of motivations and drives and impulses was often swayed by his past. His losses. His always simmering anger. His memory of red hair and green eyes and life and love and laughter overridden by the images of his dead wife and child that would never leave him. Maybe that's what brought Gibbs and Jenny together. Maybe they were more alike than Gibbs had ever known. Maybe she was as much a product of her father's death as he was of his girls'.

"She isn't who you think she is."

Fornell stepped from DiNozzo's kitchen, steaming cup in his hand. Old friend. Old enemy. They could have been brothers, both falling for the same wrong woman, sniping and biting at each other, trying to get ahead, to win a competition no one but they could see. Gibbs had warned Tobias about Diane and the man hadn't believed him. Couldn't see the viper hidden beneath breasts and thighs and designer suits. 

"I think I told you that once, Tobias. Look how it worked out."

A rueful half-smile slid across Fornell's lips. "What do they say? 'Love is blind.'" 

"Wasn't love," Gibbs denied. His memories slid and slipped, turning sideways, falling into new patterns. Paris nights. Vienna mornings. A farmhouse in Croatia. His connection with Jenny had been white-hot, searing. Their love-making frantic, wild and frenzied, each of them reaching for life, for a reminder of their own beating hearts while they stopped others'. He remembered the bright glint in Jenny's eyes in the dark; felt her move breathlessly beneath him, urging him on, faster, harder, more, more, more. As if time was short. As if they had to take every moment, snatch it from the air and pound it into the shape they wanted.

The grunt of laughter made him narrow his eyes. 

"Maybe not for her." Fornell sipped his coffee, features smoothed to blandness. "But I know you, Gibbs. You're all in if you're in it at all. Picking out china patterns and fitting her finger for a ring while she was crawling over you to get away."

Gibbs slid the laptop onto the coffee table and stood, eager for a cup to hold in his hands, a prop to remind him of who he was and what he had to do. The hit of caffeine in his gut, slapping him awake, and in his blood, masquerading as enthusiasm. As eagerness. As life. He brushed past Fornell, purposefully hitting his shoulder to force a half-step back. Brothers. Yep, that about covered it.

"I'm not wrong, Gibbs. You were completely screwed the moment you took her to your bed. If there's one thing I know about Leroy Jethro Gibbs is that once a female has you in her sights, once she's got your attention, your gut and your gonads get tied up together and you're toast."

"And you're so much different," Gibbs shot back, taking a minute to scrutinize DiNozzo's fancy coffee machine before he tugged out the pot and poured a cup.

"We aren't talking about me. This is one woman I would not be willing to have in my house let alone my bed. Jezus, Gibbs, open your eyes. The woman is out of control and has been for years. I mean, trying to take out the bad guys come hell or high water, yeah, I get that, but putting your own in danger to do it? When did that become okay with you?"

It hadn't. Gibbs gulped the hot liquid to give himself a chance to dig out from under old memories. Fornell wasn't wrong. He'd wanted to be tender with Jenny. Gentle. To give her softness and care when they were alone together – to balance the scales against the blood and death they dealt under their government's orders with something that was completely different. Completely them. 

She wouldn't let him.

Old fashioned chauvinist at heart, Gibbs had wanted to make her the next Mrs. Gibbs. Pull her to his side and protect her. Keep her safe. She'd never have agreed – and he was stupid to think she would. 

Gibbs took a slow, deep breath and let the soft, candlelit memories blaze into stark reality. They weren't lovers –he wasn't Jenny's boyfriend. At most he scratched an itch. At least, she played the same games with him as she had with their marks. And Gibbs was too blinded by red hair and curves to figure it out. 

The question remained, was he still so blind? Was he being made an old fool by an old lover? Played? Smirked at behind closed doors? Kort's file said so, but since when had Gibbs believed what some jerk from a three-letter agency told him? Rule number three. Never believe what you're told – always double check.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking."

He raised his eyes above the coffee cup. Fornell was shaking his head, lips clamped so tight that the lines around his mouth looked like crevasses. The man set his cup down with a clunk and crossed his arms over his chest. Pale blue eyes seemed to sear a path straight through Gibbs' calm facade and into his churning gut.

"You're thinking, why should you believe this Kort? He's obviously playing his own game, working his own agenda. You don't know him from Adam." Fornell's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Me, too. Never liked his type. Smarmy bastard." He turned to face the hallway that led to the rest of DiNozzo's apartment. To face Tim McGee, standing there, listening and watching, every emotion written across his honest face. 

"So, let's make a deal," Fornell continued. "Let's believe each other. The people who've watched each other's backs for years. Me. You. McGee. DiNozzo. Ducky and Abby. Even your morgue rat, Palmer. Think you can do that, Gibbs?"

Looking past Fornell, Gibbs was watching McGee. Young and still green in many ways, McGee was staring at him, doubt and darkness in his eyes. Standing in the doorway as if guarding DiNozzo's inner sanctum from two strangers. The young agent didn't have to say anything to ask his questions, to shout his uncertainty about Gibbs' intentions. To show that he was firmly on DiNozzo's side, no matter where Gibbs finally decided to stand.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. Why wouldn't Gibbs be on DiNozzo's side? Why wouldn't he believe him, the man he'd worked side-by-side with for years? Why was there so much as a moment's hesitation in Gibbs' gut? He took another sip, chasing his own rationales, the patterns of his life, his principles and passions to ground in his mind. Shannon. Kelly. Jenny. Franks. The past. DiNozzo. McGee. Abby. Ducky. The present. His mind's eye shifted, the men and women of his past pressing forward, standing tall and strong before the others. They wore brighter colors, inspired stronger feelings, and drew him to their sides, the others fading into the background. He'd loved them. Followed them. Kept them close until they faded away. Until they left him. Left him with scars and empty places and loss.

Places he was determined not to fill again.

Why was his past so much more significant than his present? Why didn't the men here, right here, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him against all enemies deserve just as much – more – of his loyalty? Why didn't his connection with DiNozzo, with Ducky, or McGee come with the sharp colors and sounds and smells of his time in the bullpen with Mike Franks or standing beside Jenny Shepard, huddled in a doorway to escape the rain? Why were these men cardboard cut-outs compared with Gibbs' memories?

"We're not asking you to forget, Boss. Neither Tony nor I would want that." McGee walked forward, standing tall under Gibbs' silent scrutiny. "But we are asking you to trust that we might be seeing things more clearly than you right now. And that's a lot to ask, I know." Tim swallowed and then began again. "Ziva killed Sterling. I know it. Ducky's autopsy will prove it. And the Director, well, it's obvious that she was the one to cover it up."

McGee wasn't begging that Gibbs believe him. DiNozzo hadn't waited for his blessing. Gibbs slid his gaze towards Fornell, who'd been working with Kort to get to the truth. But these men were trusting him. Standing up to him. Making sure that Gibbs knew that they would not back down from this fight and that they had other allies if Gibbs couldn't back them up. It stung. Gouged at his pride. Slapped at his assumptions.

Because they were right.

Gibbs clenched his teeth. Nodded. And felt something inside him let go. He might not trust Trent Kort. The CIA. The FBI. But he trusted McGee. He trusted DiNozzo. He trusted his team. Because they trusted him, first.

He couldn't let them down.


	10. Chapter 10

-10-

Tony sat back, fingers laced behind his head, stretching muscles that were making it clear that they were done. Not going to move. Nerveless. Time for sleep, they urged him. To recharge. To let the comfort of his leather sofa cradle him as he drifted away.

Not yet, he reminded them.

He'd closed the laptop on the Skype call to Adler a few minutes ago. Palmer was disposing of the remnants of breakfast – cream cheese smeared plastic knives following empty breakfast burrito wrappers into the garbage bag he clutched in one hand. His movements were slow and deliberate, as if he was picking apart some human wreckage left at a crime scene. Like the trash was evidence of a crime or the flayed body of their current victim.

Not too far from the truth.

Fornell and McGee had each of their cell phones torn apart on Tony's kitchen counter, a pile of micro-circuitry beside them. Bugs. Locaters. Devices that collected data and could be used to scramble signals. Every one of their phones had been compromised. Even Palmer's, which had given the ME's assistant a shot of pride and of terror at the same time.

Thankfully, Gibbs had forgotten to charge his phone – again – and it had died somewhere between the hospital and Tony's apartment. Tony had been paranoid enough to turn his off after his initial call to Steve and Brad. And Abby – being the smartest of the bunch – had left her work phone at Ducky's after showing Ducky's mom how easy it was to download porn.

McGee had left the bugs in his phone and Palmer's in place. Let their enemies see the two at Tony's apartment – it wasn't that strange. Jimmy and Timmy were friends. Mostly. Sometimes. When Palmer wasn't feeling inferior and McGee wasn't up on his high horse. So, yeah, once in a while.

Abby was still tapping away at her back-up phone, undoubtedly missing her loyal troops in the NCIS lab, but willing – just this once – to share Ducky and Tim's evidence with her colleagues at the NIH. Safe. Secure. Distant from not so friendly onlookers.

Ducky was sitting quietly in a side chair, sipping a cup of Earl Grey, thoughts chasing themselves behind his steady blue gaze. He'd hustled Tony into the bedroom almost as soon as he arrived, checking stitches, covering the wounds with fresh, dry bandages as he talked about his lovely conversation with 'Bradley' and the likelihood that the doctor's paper on Treatment of the Black Plague in the 21st Century would become a best-seller. He'd bustled Tony around like one of his mother's Corgis working to keep their herd safe, relaxing only when he'd verified that Tony was okay.

Sterling's autopsy results were shared without any of the man's usual rambling asides but including an undercurrent of disappointment. It had taken a while for Tony to figure out that it was himself the doctor was disappointed in. That he hadn't seen through Ziva's façade. That he had fallen into the same trap as Gibbs had, not just concerning Ziva, but in sharing the fond reminiscences Shepard had provoked. Ducky was kicking himself, blaming himself.

Tony couldn't stand it. "Maybe we should start blaming the people actually responsible for this crap instead of ourselves – or each other," he'd growled into the silence. Strangely enough, the others seemed to appreciate it, and he'd caught more than one look of respect and gratitude sent his way. Weird.

Charles Sterling had been killed by an injection of insulin made under his tongue. It had happened during transit, when he'd been allowed in the men's room – by himself – at Shepard's supposedly off-hand order. Alone. Right. Tony could count on one hand the number of times he'd been allowed in the men's room alone since Ziva joined the MCRT. Chip's collapse had been explained as stress – a heart attack – a pre-existing medical condition that had gone untreated.

Ducky had clucked his tongue and called it sloppy. "Any medical examiner worth his salt would have figured it out," he said with a shake of his head.

"Maybe that's why they shipped Chip off to the FBI," Jimmy had joked, smiling. Awkward. Fornell hadn't been amused.

"Indeed." Ducky had lowered his eyes, but Tony caught the curve of his lips at his assistant's faux pas.

Before he fled NCIS, McGee had hacked the agency phones, found the calls between Ziva and the director, and timed the death with the outages in surveillance cameras in the hallways the killer would have had to access to get to the men's room. Circumstantial. But damning.

Reports scanned and emailed to Adler, the lawyer had Skyped from his car parked safely in the driveway of the CNO who'd agreed to call Davenport and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs there for a meeting before office hours. He'd filled Tony and the team in on his conversation with the FBI's Deputy Director and the Task Force headed up by Ron Sacks.

"Sacks is on Administrative Leave based on your testimony and the medical reports, Tony. Plantis, the DD, is pissed and embarrassed – which leads me to believe that Sacks is going to find himself out of a job or posted to the FBI's satellite office in Djibouti pretty damn quick. He's offering a formal apology and is willing to pre-date all of Fornell's actions as FBI/CIA interface to when Kort first approached him."

Fornell had leaned in. "That would cover my ass, but I'm not sure it's enough."

"It's enough," Tony had added quickly. "I don't expect him to kiss my ass, just to make it right. Now, what about Davenport?"

Adler had smiled. The Chief of Naval Operations was no fool. Admiral Faden had the reputation of a spit-n-polish throwback to the 18th century when Navy men were flogged for the smallest infraction. Between him and Marine Colonel Rodriguez, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Davenport didn't have a chance in hell at sweeping this mess under the rug.

What had the man been thinking? Getting Shepard promoted past others who had far more years in service and far better credentials was one thing, but placing a Mossad operative inside NCIS where she couldn't help but come into contact with military Intel that even our staunchest allies shouldn't have? Even if Jenny Shepard had the moves of a seventh level geisha, she shouldn't have been able to get Davenport to sign onto her personal agenda.

Although… Tony shifted his glance towards Gibbs. That would explain a lot. Maybe someone should search Shepard's house for a well-thumbed copy of the Kama Sutra, complete with footnotes and asterisks: 'works great on older men with Daddy issues.'

His Boss had been pretty quiet while they laid out the evidence. Never interrupting or claiming impatience as Fornell presented Shepard's record. Her connections to Ari and Eli David. Her psychotic vendetta against the Frog. Tony understood Gibbs' silence. This crap was mind-boggling. Tony knew he was far from normal by anyone's standards, but this was some messed up stuff.

Yes, little Tony never knew if his mother was going to be his best friend or a scary stranger when he got up in the morning. Between her meds and the brain cancer, it was a wonder that she was functional at all. He'd have endured a thousand more sailor suits and canopy beds and drunken sea monkeys for one more smile, one more hug, one more double feature with her. And, sure, Anthony DiNozzo, Senior would never win Dad – or Husband – of the Year, but that didn't mean that Tony was vowing vengeance, or making it his life's work to get back at him.

Watching Gibbs now, Tony wondered if his Boss understood. If Shepard's motives seemed perfectly reasonable to a man who'd lost the most precious things in his life and then made it his mission to take their killer down. Maybe Gibbs respected Shepard's focus. Her dedication. Hell, who knows how Gibbs thought – it wasn't as if the Boss was in the habit of explaining himself to the likes of Tony. Ever.

So – Adler would make sure the brass took care of Davenport. He'd sic the CNO on the SecNav and bury the man. And, if Tony knew people – and did he know people – Davenport would be as quick and loud as a greased pig to turn on his lover. Shepard. And she'd head for safety.

And that meant Gibbs.

"Hey."

And there he stood, next to Tony's elbow, head cocked to one side as if Gibbs had heard his thoughts. Wouldn't that just be Tony's luck? It wasn't bad enough that Gibbs could appear out of nowhere, or walk silently through a room with a carpet of bubble-wrap, or out-fight, out-shoot, and out-think every criminal mastermind in history, now the man was a telepath. Awesome.

"Think we need to talk," Gibbs added, his gaze locking onto something just over Tony's head, his voice pitched to reach only Tony's ears.

Tony slowly lowered his arms, wondering if he'd fallen asleep in the few seconds between Adler's call and this moment. That would be a likely explanation for this strange phenomenon. Gibbs talking, sure, that happened now and then. The Boss could do it if he had to. Interrogation. Abby. Ducky, if he could get a word in edgewise. With victims or witnesses. Kids especially. Or with military types – people Gibbs respected without hesitation.

Tony DiNozzo did not fall into any of those categories.

He was still staring up at his Boss, frowning, when the man's legendary impatience kicked in. Gibbs held out one hand and speared Tony with a familiar glare. "Well?"

Ah. Yes. This was more like it. At Gibbs' word, Tony was to jump, not bothering to ask 'how high' before he started hopping. His gaze flicked between Gibbs' hand and his eyes, trying to read the man's intentions, to piece together his likely motivations for the heart-to-heart he was intent on having. Gibbs was keeping his thoughts to himself, had been during the entire discussion. No surprise there. But he hadn't argued about Ziva's guilt or Shepard's involvement.

Tony pursed his lips, considering. He wasn't interested in taking Gibbs' orders right now, in acting the loyal St. Bernard and showing his belly to his Master. But – Tony sighed and slapped his hand into Gibbs' and let his Boss pull him to his feet – this might be the only way to find out what Gibbs was thinking. If he was really going to back Tony's play or if he was going to cut and run and go all Lone Wolf on them.

He steadied himself against Gibbs' shoulder for a second and then led the way down the hall, away from the others. Stopping just outside his bedroom, Tony leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting. Gibbs wanted to talk. Tony was giving him every opportunity.  
Surprisingly, Gibbs didn't waste any more time.

"Shepard's out of control. I see that. Hell, a blind man would see that."

Tony grunted. "Sounds like you might be beginning to believe what everybody else here knows. Good timing."

Gibbs' eyes narrowed. "I'm not the clueless bastard you think I am, then?"

"Well, the bastard part has been proven without a doubt, but, no, you're not clueless, Gibbs. Just stubborn. All too willing to be led around by some people." Tony put one hand on his heart. "Not me, of course. Mostly redheads. Female redheads. Females in general."

"Yeah, I got that," Gibbs growled. 

"Do you?" Tony asked. "No, I mean, do you really get it, Boss? Or are you just hanging out here, following along, listening, before you shake it all off and go out to do things your own way? Because, after all, you always know better."

Gibbs stepped into Tony's space, eyes glittering like sharpened steel. "This about me now, DiNozzo? I thought this was about NCIS. About all of us. Getting to the bottom of what put you in harm's way with the Feebs and Abby with a psycho in her lab. Now it seems to be about rubbing my nose in my mistakes. Wanna explain that to me?"

Tony stood straight, eye-to-eye with his Boss, his mentor, the man who was supposed to be his leader. Anger rushed through his bloodstream, flooding his mind with dark words, with the nastiest of nasty responses to the latest in Gibbs' intimidation tactics. Damn it, the man should have known. Gibbs should have seen the signs and taken steps to rein in Shepard before she got too deep. Should have seen Ziva's manipulation for what it was and protected his team. Gibbs was supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing. White knight up on a white charger, running down every bad guy that got too close to them. Untarnished paragon of justice and truth, unbreakable, clean, spotless –

Rifle fire. Blood. The taste of copper. Kate's hair spread out against the concrete roof like a fan, like she was lying under the blue sky, asleep. A red screen fell across Tony's vision, despair and loss and grief and guilt all tangled up with Gibbs' shocked expression and Katy's dead eyes.

He didn't protect her. Let her down. Gibbs, vaunted as the best NCIS agent ever, all-wise, all-seeing, Superman, had watched Kate Todd die right in front of him.

Tony's breath rushed out of him, leaving him swaying, unbalanced. He blinked, steadied by strong hands on his arms, pressing him back against the wall. Gibbs. Concerned. His face betraying his worry in the widened eyes and pale skin, in the real man with real emotions and real weaknesses that peeked through when he was surprised out of his shell of control and anger.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs. A man who missed the point sometimes. Who chased the wrong demons. Who trusted a little too easily or not at all. Who, sometimes, was wrong. Powerless. Caught looking in the wrong direction when the bullets flew. Not perfect. Not even close.

"Sorry," Tony whispered, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall behind him. Anger draining, falling away, Tony felt wasted, exhausted. When had he begun to blame Gibbs for not being perfect? "Sorry, Gibbs. And, before you smack my head for apologizing –"

The hands on Tony's arms tightened. "Not going to headslap you, DiNozzo. Apologies aren't always about weakness. Not between friends." Still holding on, offering strength and support, Gibbs took a step backward. "Owe you an apology, too."

That brought Tony's head up, eyes snapping open.

"Yeah. You're not hearing things," Gibbs murmured, a half-smile twitching across his face. "I screwed up. Got so turned around I wasn't paying attention." He paused, examining Tony's face. "We gonna be able to get past this?"

His mind's eye flipped back through the photos of the past few months. Ziva at Kate's desk. Smirking. Gibbs' fond glances towards the deadly assassin. Shepard's long legs and high heels sashaying down the stairs. McGee's innocent confusion. And not so innocent smugness. Abby dressed like Career-Girl Barbie. Sterling's fierce glare whenever he thought Tony wasn't looking.

"I can't really blame you for making mistakes, Gibbs. Not that I wouldn't mind trying. I've made some whoppers in my time," Tony sighed.

"Not supposed to make mistakes, am I?"

Tony shook his head. "Small ones, maybe," he admitted. "Like not knowing how to use technology. Or being impatient. Not listening. Or the ones that come hand in hand with your general excellence, like being too driven, or too dedicated, or –"

"Or too pig-headed. Those don't sound small to me. More like you're making excuses for me. Not what I want, either."

"What do you want, Gibbs?" Yeah, maybe it was time for Tony to ask. To really talk to his Boss. To stop making assumptions about what the silent man was thinking and actually find out. He didn't blame himself too much for not making that effort – it hadn't been too welcome in the past. But now, now Gibbs seemed to be asking for something else, some different kind of dynamic between the two of them. "And what do you expect me to do?"

Gibbs smoothed one hand down the back of his head, looking off into the distance. Or, maybe those eyes were turned inward and he was asking himself the same kinds of questions Tony's mind was throwing up. After a moment, he met Tony's eyes and nodded, obviously having made up his mind about something. 

"I want to go back in time. To get my head out of my ass before I let Ari screw us over. Talk to Morrow before he leaves instead of walking off in a huff. Find out who was coming in to replace him – and why." He chucked Tony under the chin, just as he'd done when he was in the Fibbies' holding cell. "I want to listen to you, hear what you were saying, instead of going off on my own 'too driven, too dedicated, lone wolf' crusade."

Grief. Regret. Blame. Tony heard it all in Gibbs' voice. All the emotions, the reactions that his Boss had kept hidden all this time. It was everything that Tony had wanted to hear, had needed to hear for months. But, instead of making him happy, or satisfied, instead of reveling in Gibbs' pain, Tony shuddered. How could he be happy when a man like Gibbs, a friend, was hurting? What kind of person would that make him?

"But, I can't have that," Gibbs continued. "Can't go back. Tried it before – didn't work out."

No. Tony nodded, keeping eye contact with the man in front of him.

"Can only go on from here. Try to make it right." He cocked his head again, with that same piercing look as before. "You willing to do that? You gonna be able to trust me again, Tony?"

"I have absolutely no trouble with that, Gibbs," Tony blurted out. And, really, he didn't. He'd trusted Gibbs to take care of him when he confronted Fornell and Shepard in Abby's lab. He trusted him to know who to call, to follow Tony's lead, to watch his back until they got from under Shepard's control. No matter what kind of barriers had been built between them, no matter how Tony had – wrongly – blamed Gibbs for not being able to save Kate, no matter that Gibbs was a hard guy to work with, Tony would always trust him. He couldn't seem to help it.

"You trust me to take on Shepard?"

And there it was. That was the tipping point, wasn't it? Tony watched Gibbs watch him. Wait for his reaction. Could Tony trust Gibbs to take Shepard down? To not fall under the woman's spell again? To turn off the echoes of their shared past to see the conniving, manipulative woman in front of him? See her in black and white, not in the soft pastel shades of a romantic sunset?

"That depends." Tony straightened. "Do you trust me to handle Ziva?" Two ways. This newfound trust and partnership had to go both ways. It couldn't just be Tony agreeing to sit down and shut up, to follow Gibbs' lead, no questions asked. No more asking 'how high.' No more agreeing to whatever unspoken plan Gibbs was intent on following.

Now Tony would see if Gibbs was the kind of leader he always hoped he would be.

"Do I trust you to do the right thing? Yeah, DiNozzo. I do. But-" he held up one hand before Tony could react. "I wish you'd take back-up."

"Are you planning to take back-up, Boss?"

Tony nearly fainted when Gibbs nodded. "Fornell." 

"Oh. Well. Okay, then. He should keep your head on straight." Who knew? Maybe Gibbs really was serious about changing.

"You take McGee."

Tony turned his head to peer back down the hallway, not at all surprised to find the two odd-fellows, Fornell and McGee, staring at them. Jaws set. Hands on hips.

"Looks like I don't have much of a choice." He turned a glare onto his Boss. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

That earned him a headslap. A light one, but still.

"Be grateful they don't want to lock us up somewhere and let Kort and his CIA buddies handle them."

"Fine," Tony growled. "Let's get this show on the road."


	11. Chapter 11

-11-

Tim paced back and forth in front of the monitor, his gaze flicking restlessly between the screen, the door, and the phone in his hand. Stomach gurgling, head swimming with the crazy details of the past 24-hours, he was out of his depth and he knew it.

This wasn't supposed to be happening to his team. The team was Gibbs' gut and Tony's fond mockery and Ziva's kick-ass skills. It was Abby and Ducky finding the evidence and Palmer … Palmer just because. It was catching the bad guys and saving the day. It was hard and bloody and filled with satisfaction when they won and grief and loss when they didn't. 

It was home.

Gibbs' team at NCIS was the first place Tim had ever felt that his talents and strengths were actually useful. Yes, he was a good shot, he had the physical training that all agents were expected to excel at, but it was Tim's mind that he'd always valued the most. His analytical proficiency, his expertise with all things digital and technological were what made him stand out. After working for almost two years with Team Gibbs Tim had never been more proud, knowing that he could actually make a contribution, follow the clues, and be an integral part of a team that made a real difference.

Now it was falling apart. Kate was dead. Abby could have been killed by that man, the man who'd come to NCIS for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Even if Tim could have believed that it was all just a horrible coincidence, Tony didn't. And Gibbs didn't. And Rule 39, along with all the other Gibbs' rules, had become a part of Tim's psyche. 

He froze, clutching the phone tighter. Abby could have been killed! The sudden drop in his stomach made him cold, stole his breath and his confidence and reminded him that, just like Kate, just like Chris Pacci, she could have been the one found lying in a pool of blood this time. Tim knew that he would never recover from that kind of loss.

He took a deep breath and tried to settle his nerves. Abby was fine. Tony was fine. Well, maybe not fine, but getting there. Tim didn't want to think about what could have happened if it had taken them longer to fine George Stewart or the dead woman's legless body. What Sacks might have "accidentally allowed" to happen to Tony while in his custody. He did know that Sacks would never be trusted in law enforcement again. Not by co-workers. Not by any other agency. Sacks had broken the code. Targeted another federal agent out of spite or jealousy or plain stupidity. 

It was a big mistake. A mistake that Tim had no intention of making.

Ziva had been a member of their team for months now. A fellow agent. Someone trusted by Gibbs to have their backs in the field. Didn't she deserve the same respect that Tony and Gibbs did? That Tim would? Tony was framed. Evidence was planted. Could the same things have happened to Ziva?

He remembered Ziva's surprise appearance in the bullpen, backpack on her back, expecting to start a new life in a new land. The way Gibbs' words of denial had shocked her and how she'd hid it beneath a smooth unconcern; how sanguine she'd seemed about the position she'd been offered suddenly disappearing in a puff of smoke and Gibbs' raised eyebrow. And then Tim and Tony were being told she was staying. Taking over Kate's desk. Partner. Colleague. A woman with skills and training Tim couldn't hope to emulate.  
Who had been doing the manipulating? Ziva? Director Shepard? Someone higher than both of them? Tim had to know.

She'd sought him out. Him, Tim McGee. Ziva had asked him for help. For little things like dry cleaners and restaurants and grocery stores. He'd helped her set up her bank accounts so her paycheck could be direct deposited. He'd walked through computer design with her so she could pick out her new laptop. She'd invited him to dinner. Taught him some quick and dirty fighting. And asked him a lot of questions.

Mostly about Tony.

Tim shook his head, fingering the phone, turning the volume up all the way and then backing it down, plugging in the password to look at the empty notifications bar. He'd never caught on. Never. He'd told her every embarrassing story about his partner. Happily. So eager to put Tony down and raise his own status in her dark exotic eyes. 

When he looked back on it, he judged himself a fool. But maybe he ought to take some of Tony's advice and start judging her instead. Mossad agents weren't known as team players. They didn't have a reputation as people who made friends, took orders, or fit in with other people's ideas of teamwork. She'd played him. Now he just had to figure out why. Figure out if she'd been working on orders, trying to drive a wedge between Tony and the others, or if this kind of behavior was instinctual – automatic – to agents like her.

Ziva, part of a vast conspiracy? It didn't make any sense. Why would the head of Mossad order his daughter to infiltrate a little agency like NCIS? If Eli David was so intent on planting his daughter in a US government organization, why not CIA or NSA? Why not something bigger. Darker. With more secrets to exploit and filled with men and women who cut their teeth on intrigue and lies? Could it have been because, at NCIS, Ziva was under Director Shepard's thumb? Controlled? And, if so, what did that make Ziva but another person who'd been manipulated into her actions?

Tim had been rocked back on his heels when he'd figured out what happened to Sterling. When he'd traced the timeline and found that no one else had been unaccounted for when Chip was in the head, no one but Ziva. And when she showed up again in the bullpen, calm, unfazed by the circumstances that had sent Tony to jail, Abby into a self-defense frenzy, and their attacker to the morgue, he just couldn't take it anymore.

And then Fornell called. Called Tim. On his cell phone. All Fornell's snark and superiority gone, the FBI agent had spoken, calm and precise, and walked Tim move by move past Ziva, into the elevator, to a cab, and out of the Navy Yard.

Tim had to know what was going on. Beyond hacking, beyond the black and white of NCIS records and CIA reports, Tim needed the give and take of the team, standing in the bullpen in front of the plasma, sharing information and insights. He needed to hear what Trent Kort's file meant, and whether or not Gibbs believed it. He needed Tony's irreverent humor, the way he thought out loud and filtered nothing so the rest of the team could draw their own conclusions.

Tim McGee knew his strengths, but when he was being honest with himself, he also knew his limitations. He couldn't look at Ziva and know, he couldn't read the truth in her shadowed eyes and her body language and put all the clues together into an answer. It was Tony who was the best at that. No matter how much Tim might resent it, he knew it to be true, and he knew he had to find Tony and Gibbs and get them to lay it all out for him. Fill in the colors, the blanks in Tim's algorithm. The broken code.

Even when he was picking the lock on Tony's apartment – internally thanking Ziva for teaching him that skill – his mind had been reeling with the possibilities. And then he'd seen the wreck that the FBI had left in Tony's sanctuary and couldn't help seeing the parallels between it and the fragmenting of Gibbs' team. His hands immediately moved to help, to clean up, to try to put everything back in the right place as if nothing had ever happened.

He really, really wanted to do that for his team, too.

So, he'd reported on the evidence. Listened to Fornell tell them what kind of person Director Shepard was. Heard Ducky's ME report. And then he watched as Tony and Gibbs had taken the real discussion to the hallway, away from him. Tony was pissed and exhausted and Gibbs was angry and determined. He'd never seen their dynamic so broken – and Tim was stunned to find just how much it had shaken him.

Tim had been happy when Tony asked him to be his back-up. Grateful to be trusted when, clearly, Tony wasn't up to trusting too many people right now. But when Tony laid out his plans, when Tim saw the darkness in Tony's eyes and heard it in his voice, he'd hesitated.

And Tony had noticed.

"It's okay, Tim. I get it," Tony had said, quiet and sincere like Tim had hardly ever seen him. "This isn't what you signed on for. Sneaking around. Turning your back on somebody who's been your friend."

"But it's okay with you?" Tim had blurted out. "I mean, it seems like you're almost eager to go after her. Honestly, Tony, I expect that kind of vengeful stuff from Gibbs, but –"

Tony had interrupted. "But not from happy-go-lucky DiNozzo, everyone's favorite patsy and clown?"

"That is not what I meant," Tim had whispered, leaning in so that Abby and Ducky couldn't hear him. He'd glanced at the two of them, at Palmer who was obviously watching and listening, at the two others, their heads close together, talking, Abby's hands painting pictures in the air. "I mean, you were just framed for murder, Tony, and we all knew you were innocent from the very start. There wasn't a minute of doubt, no matter how much we joked around. You know that."

Tony's grin had shown too many teeth. "I do. And I'd probably have appreciated the joking around looking back on this memory fondly while guzzling beer and eating pizza. If I hadn't been stabbed. Or threatened. Or had to stand there and take whatever Sacks and his tame gorilla were handing out. Eventually."

Stabbed. Beaten. Cavity searches and interrogations. Tim didn't want to think about it. 

"Listen, Tim," Tony had finally said, "did you have that feeling when you found the evidence about Ziva and the director? What did your gut say?"

Tim's gut gurgled and roiled and generally only told him it had been too long since lunch or that he shouldn't have eaten that convenience story sushi. Or that there was something he'd forgotten to do. Lock the front door. Turn off the stove. Back-up his writing files. His gut wasn't like Gibbs' or even like Tony's. Jaw clenched, Tim forced himself to admit it. "Okay, Tony. No. No, I never doubted that Ziva killed Chip. And I never doubted that the director was behind it. Are you happy now?"

"Happy is nowhere near when I am right now, Probie." Tony had dropped his head into his hands, fingers tightening in his hair as if he would pull out every strand. He strained silently, fighting some internal battle Tim couldn't see and couldn't help with and damned if Tim wasn't tired of being left out. Tired and scared. Scared of Tony sending him off on some wild goose chase just to get him out of the way. To protect him. To keep Tim from having to make this decision.

He didn't want to hurt Tony. He sure didn't want him to second-guess taking Tim for back-up. "Tell me what you want me to do," he'd finally said. 

Tony's head had snapped up, fire blazing behind his green eyes. "I want you to be sure. I want you to not be second-guessing while she puts a bullet in my brain. Whatever it takes to get you there, Tim. You tell me."

So here Tim was. Standing here, alone, clutching one last thread of connection to Ziva, to his teammate. Giving her one more chance while Tony went to see the one last person that he could talk to. Who would understand. Help him get his head on straight.

The phone nearly vibrated itself out of his hand, the ringer volume so loud the sound bounced off the walls. 

"Finally," he blurted, smashing the 'accept call' button. "Ziva. Finally," he repeated. "Where are you?"

"I am not going to tell you that, McGee. I – I do not know who to trust."

She sounded so hesitant. Almost scared. "I understand that. But, you have to know that, no matter what's happened, I'm not going to turn on you."

Her laugh was laced with sadness. "Haven't you already? You and Tony? You believe I am some kind of murderer. Even now, after working together for months, you do not trust me."

Tim pressed his lips together, frowning. "Can you blame us? It looks bad, Ziva. It looks like you killed Sterling and that you've been working for Director Shepard – for her personally, not for NCIS – this whole time. Listen, I know that you might not have had a choice, but you really should talk to us. Let us help you."

"Help me? You believe I am a monster. A liar. Someone that you should not trust. You will not believe a word I say."

Tim closed his eyes and tried to picture her. Hidden in some corner, somewhere she'd think herself safe. She was probably calling from a pay phone, or a public phone in an empty office somewhere. Was she running? Dark eyes darting into every shadow, sure that someone had her in his sights? Or was she sitting on her desk at NCIS, confident and cocky as he'd seen her so many times before?

Which was the real Ziva David and which was the mask?

"What would you have me believe, Ziva? You killed Sterling. A man in NCIS custody. Don't deny it."

"I do not deny it," she snapped. "It was my hand that wielded the syringe. But I was not the one who decided. Who ordered. I am never that one. I am simply the sharp point of the spear. A weapon."

"A weapon in your father's hand?"

"Yes."

He could hear the anger, the frustrated rage in her voice. He wondered if she was holding a knife. How close she was to the edge. To becoming as reckless and out of control as her brother.

"I want to believe you, Ziva."

Her sigh trembled, more emotion in it than she probably wanted to show. "Then let me talk to you. Let me explain. If anyone would understand, would be able to trace my father's influence, his network here in your country, it would be you."

Tim held his breath. This was it. Decision time.

"You are at your apartment, Tim? Will you let me come to see you?" She hesitated. "Will you trust me enough for that?"

"Are you tracing my cell phone, Ziva?" 

"I – I have placed a tracker in your phone, Tim. And in Tony's and Gibbs'. I am sorry, but I was-"

"- ordered to do it, yes, I know." Tim stood straight, his eyes on the door. At least she was admitting it. That was something, wasn't it? She didn't have to tell him that. "You'll come? Alone?"

"I will. I promise you. But," her voice steadied, back to business, "you will have to promise me the same. That you are alone. Tony is not with you?"

Tim was expecting the question. "Aren't you tracking his phone, too?"

"He has either found my device or has left his phone off."

"Well, he's smarter than he looks," Tim ground out bitterly. "But, no, Tony is not with me. He's … visiting a friend."

"Tony has a friend?"

Her mocking tone sounded so normal. So much like this was any other day on Team Gibbs. That she was poking fun at Tony, her partner, her friend, and that Tony would poke right back. This is what Tim wanted. To turn back the clocks and get back to the way things were.

"If you must know, Tony went to talk to Kate."

The silence on the other end of the phone went on too long. Tim clenched his fists, determined to wait.

"He is going to Indiana?"

"No. There's a memorial, in DC. A memorial to all of the fallen officers and agents who gave their lives for others. He goes there sometimes, to pay his respects. To talk to her." Tim relaxed his muscles, steadied himself. Decision made, he walked to the door and unlatched the lock. "I'm here, by myself, I promise. The door's unlocked. Waiting on your move, Ziva."

"Then I shall see you, soon, Tim," she whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is a National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC.


	12. Chapter 12

-12-

He didn't have to see her to know she was there.

Gibbs hesitated, one hand on the doorknob. His front door was unlocked as always. His team, Fornell, they all thought he was crazy to leave his door unlocked. To practically invite every weirdo and drugged out thug to come right in and take whatever he wanted. They'd never understood. Things. Things were meaningless. Let them come. Let them steal his radio. His 15-year-old television. Let them take his dishes or his case of beer or his furniture. What the hell did he care?

They couldn't take his memories.

This house was built from them. They held the joists and plaster together, kept the roof tight, and warmed the empty spaces. The house had been packed to the rafters with Gibbs' past and had taken on a life of its own. It groaned in the cold, like the old man Gibbs had become. It warmed with laughter, or the sounds of friends' voices, the exposed wood glowing. A lot less of that lately, Gibbs admitted, his hand tightening around the metal knob. He'd been burying himself in the basement more and more. Since Ari. Since the devil had wormed his way inside NCIS to strike out at Gibbs' team – his family.

Even though he left the door unlocked, Gibbs had begun to see his home as a fortress. Walls that kept people out rather than kept his memories in. He'd denied access to everyone – made sure they knew that bothering him, expecting hospitality or some kind of warm greeting when they stopped by, would end with awkward silence and grim resentment. He'd kept DiNozzo out in the cold – literally – when his apartment building lost heat. Growled and grumbled whenever Fornell leaned over the railing to the basement or helped himself to Gibbs' bourbon.

None of that had stopped Ari. The terrorist – murderer – had walked right in and taken up position in Gibbs' basement. He'd left his mark – his breath and touch and presence – in the places most sacred to Gibbs' heart. Full of himself, so sure of his plan, his superior cunning, Ari hadn't noticed when his death stalked in right behind him.

Gibbs had known. He'd known Ari would target him where he felt the most protected – the least vulnerable. It was his MO. Ducky in the morgue. Kate on a DC sidewalk in broad daylight. His pride wouldn't allow him anything less. Gibbs laid one hand against the smooth wooden door, his mouth twisting in a grimace. Ziva didn't have to tell Gibbs what her brother was planning, or where he'd strike. Gibbs had felt it as soon as he'd walked in his door and his home, dusty and warm and filled with his memories of sweet voices and tender hands became stark and silent. Poised, as if waiting for the gunshot.

Just like now. 

Her perfume hit him as soon as he opened the door. Not subtle. There was nothing particularly subtle about Jenny Shepard. Clever. Devious. Unrelenting, yes. She could out-think and out-maneuver the best of them, but Jenny was about as subtle as Gibbs when she wanted something. Or someone.

He'd never minded forthright women. Women who knew what they wanted and made sure they got it. Shannon was like that. Honest. Determined. You could argue with her for days and she'd just smile and either end up convincing you she was right all along, or that what she'd wanted was your idea in the first place. Straight out brilliant, was his Shannon. One of a kind. 

One of a kind. Unfortunately, Gibbs hadn't got that clue soon enough. Instead, he made the same mistake a lot of men made. He thought a woman's manipulation and game-playing were just another side to her strength. Another way a strong woman could compete in this man's world. That women like Diane and Stephanie – and Jenny - tough-as-nails and not afraid to show it, could hold a candle to Shannon's courage and conviction. That Jenny Shepard's ego was akin to Shannon's confidence.

He'd been wrong.

Her high heels discarded next to his sofa, suit coat carefully folded on the cushion next to her, Jenny was sitting with her bare feet up on his coffee table. She'd untucked her blouse from her skirt, leaving it half-buttoned, and her head lay back against the padding, exposing the long, slender column of her throat, leading the eye to dip down to the shadow between her breasts. Her chest rose and fell slowly, her eyes closed as she feigned sleep, long eyelashes stark black against her pale cheek.

She was a beautiful woman. Gorgeous. Sexy. But Gibbs' libido was cold. His mind did not rush to fill in sensual memories from nights in Paris and weekends in Russia. He didn't see her red hair splayed out against sodden white sheets or her eyes half-closed in arousal. Not now. Not today. Today he saw Tony's wounds as he dropped his shirt in an NCIS conference room. He saw Abby's haunted eyes, clutching a roll of duct tape in one hand as she looked up at him in disappointment. And he remembered the knowing smirk on Jenny's face as she first turned to face him in MTAC, at Tom Morrow's right hand.

A smirk. A grin. The gleam in her eye and the throaty catch in her voice that he remembered all too well. He'd heard it often enough in Europe. When they were working. When she was stalking a mark. Right before she went in for the kill.

"You're not asleep." He stepped to the other side of the room, his back to the fireplace so he could face the scene she'd arranged for him to come home to. There was a tell-tale bulge under her folded coat. Her sidearm. Safety off, ready to her hand. Ready for him.

Her eyelids rose, lifting slowly as she turned her head against the sofa cushions. "No. I woke up when you opened the door." Her slim shoulders moved up and down, not so much a shrug as a lure to catch his eye, an invitation to admire her body. "I suppose I was hoping you'd recognize an open invitation when you saw one. You didn't used to be so patient, Jethro."

"Older. Wiser," he responded.

"With better self-control, maybe, but I don't really consider you 'older.' You still put all the young agents to shame." She raised her arms above her head, interlinking her fingers, stretching. Watching him. "Did you get Agent DiNozzo tucked in? You always were a bit of a mother hen when one of your chicks got injured. I assume he'll survive his harsh treatment at the hand of Agent Sacks."

It was as if Gibbs could see DiNozzo standing beside her, as if he could hear her through his Senior Field Agent's ears.

_"God, she's smug," Tony would say. "Listen to the way she dismisses not only your concern, but my injuries. That's definitely the kind of attitude you want in a leader."_

Yeah, Gibbs heard the smugness, the shared superiority Jenny was offering him, waiting for him to grab on and join her in denigrating his teammate. A blade of cold dread stabbed into his gut. A week ago - a day ago - would Gibbs have heard it? Or would he have given her a half-smile and shrugged his shoulders at the stupidity and weakness of a member of his team.

"DiNozzo's tough. Won't let it keep him down." Gibbs could only pretend so far. Pretend to agree with her. To take up her side. He was no master of the facade, of undercover work. Not like DiNozzo. No, what Gibbs excelled at was interrogation. At watching the sideways glances, the body language, and the other tells that gave a perp's game away.

"Really," she murmured, sliding her feet from the table and leaning forward. "That's not what I hear. I hear Tony goes on and on over a papercut, that he loves to trot out the tiniest injury to try to get sympathy from anyone close enough to hear him." She smiled, feral and sharp. "I've heard him whining all the way up in my office."

Gibbs tilted his head, meeting her insults with a chuckle and a grin that had led more than one criminal to open his mouth and tighten the noose around his own neck. "Have you? Or have you just listened to Officer David complain about him? Tell you stories about DiNozzo's so-called weaknesses?" Gibbs tugged on his pant leg and put his foot up on the table between them. "I'm not so sure your girl is as smart as she thinks she is."

He watched the changing strategies flicker behind her stare. "I think Ziva is far more your girl than mine, Jethro. She looks up to you. Thinks of you as a father figure – one who is much more accessible and kind than her biological father, that's for sure." 

He wondered if she heard the loathing in her own voice when she talked about Eli David. 

Shepard propped her elbows on her knees. "But the important thing is that we must contain this situation. We can't let Agent DiNozzo go forward with some kind of vendetta against our sister agencies. NCIS is already considered the red-headed step-child among the DC power brokers." She flashed a smile at her double entendre, flinging a lock of hair over her shoulder before she clasped her hands together and furrowed her brow, all business in the blink of an eye. "We don't want to let all of our dirty laundry hang out there, exposed, do we?"

Gibbs folded his arms and leaned them on his knee, his eyes on her, his left side itching as he heard a single soft step from his kitchen doorway. "You condoning what happened to him in their custody? What almost happened to Abby right at NCIS?" He made sure his voice was even. Unemotional.

"That was horrible, Jethro. And I take full responsibility." Her eyes were dark, her voice soft and low. "If I hadn't found the records of Mister Sterling's testimony, well, who knows what might have happened."

Nice. "While you're patting yourself on the back for getting the testimony, why don't you remind me again who hired him? And who bypassed the background check?"

"There were a lot of mistakes made. I admit that." Her voice was too bitter, too quick. She realized it as soon as he did and took a long breath to steady herself. "But what we have to remember here is that everyone is fine. The criminal has been caught and no one has really been harmed."

Gibbs' clenched his jaw. Right. Caught. Killed. Six one way, half dozen the other. "So that's why you're here, Jen? To get me to convince DiNozzo to call off his dogs? To shut up and sit down?" He wondered if she could hear the threat beneath his benign tone.

"Well, he is your loyal Saint Bernard. If anyone can bring him to heel, you can." She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. "I'd consider it a personal favor."

He let the silence build and watched the tension grow in Shepard's shoulders, in the muscle along her jaw. Finally, he answered, making sure to tint his words with the right amount of nostalgic tenderness to lure her to open up further. "A personal favor," he drawled, letting the words add up slowly, making her strain to get the next and the next until she finally got to his meaning. "Now, is that different from the head of a federal agency owing me one?"

Her relief was so obvious that it was like a shout of victory in the small room. "Personal is so much better, isn't it, Jethro?" She rose to her feet, slow and sinuous, holding him in place with the heat in her gaze. "And we do personal so very well."

She stepped closer, moving to his right around the corner of the table, her hands going to the buttons of her blouse, drawing his eyes, forcing him to turn his head, to turn his back on the doorway to the kitchen.

Gibbs lowered his foot and stepped in close, catching Shepard's hands in his and leaning down to her upturned face. "Yeah," he whispered. "Personal is better. Especially since your power as director of NCIS is about to come to an ugly, bloody end."

His hands snapped tight around her wrists, holding her against him when she tried to twist away. "Hey – I thought this is what you wanted?" he growled, jerking her close so that her knees were trapped, no way to target his sensitive areas. She still struggled, her face a mask of fury and hate, coarse threats and curses turning the air blue between them.

The gunshot stopped the struggle, both frozen in place. She watched him, stared into his eyes, waiting for the tell-tale fading, a smile curving her lips upward as she readied herself to step backwards, away from Gibbs' falling body.

The thud from the kitchen startled her. She frowned up into Gibbs' steady glare.

"Surprise, Jen," he whispered before he spun her, hands behind her back secured in his handcuffs. Only then did he turn them both to face the other room.

Fornell crouched next to the body of a stranger. Tall. Strong. Short dark hair on what remained of the skull, the half of his face not destroyed by the exit wound showing a sharp jaw-line and the beginnings of a dark beard. A Beretta lay near his outstretched hand.

The FBI agent looked up. "Don't know him. But, if I had to guess," he patted through the man's clothes, his tightly zippered leather jacket and slim pants and came up with three knives and another pistol, "I'd say our dead friend here is Mossad."

Shepard trembled in Gibbs' hold, her slight body shivering either from rage or from fear. If Gibbs had to guess, it would be blind, bitter hatred.

Gibbs made sure to keep one hand locked around her arm as he shifted to stand beside her. He needed to see her face. To watch her tells and measure whatever came out of her mouth next. 

"Care to enlighten us, Jen? Tell us who your back-up is - was? Who you arranged to kill me while you kept my back turned?" Gibbs heard his voice getting louder, his demands sharper. He felt his own anger spike, blood rushing hot and searing through his veins. "Why was I your target? What have I ever done to deserve a death warrant from you?" Leaning in, he nearly spit the question in her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Jethro. And I certainly didn't know there was a man hiding in your kitchen – he probably got here before I did and was just waiting for his opportunity."

Gibbs pulled back as if stung. "Coincidence? You're going to try to convince me that all this was just a coincidence?" He rolled his eyes. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Straining against the cuffs, Shepard thrust herself forward, her rage turning her beautiful face into a grotesque mask. "What you taught me, Gibbs, was to go with my gut. To find the bastards that hurt me, hurt my family, and show no mercy. You taught me to disregard everything else – the law, my partner, bystanders, other people's damned irritating morals – and do what had to be done. What I knew – _I knew_ – had to be done." 

Shannon and Kelly. Mike Franks. An unguarded file. His sniper rifle. Sand and heat and grinding loss. The sight of Hernandez in the crosshairs. One shot. And then screaming rage and grief and despair into the blinding Mexican sun.

"You were in my way, Gibbs. And you made it very clear every time I asserted my authority that you would not ever follow my orders. You'd never be content to let me use your skills – the skills of the MCRT, _my MCRT_ – to track down the man who murdered my father. The Frog. The arms dealer who destroyed my life just like Hernandez destroyed yours. So you're damned right I targeted you. You. DiNozzo. Abby. If you weren't going to be of use to me, you needed to get the hell out of my way."

Gut churning, Gibbs beat his anger back down, tied it up tight under the control he'd learned in the Marines. He looked at the woman in handcuffs before him. Blinked away the tattered remnants of his memories. Took in the real person, the harsh lines around her eyes, the tendons of her neck standing out like thin metal cords, and the wildness of her eyes. "So, all this," he flung one arm out in a wide circle, "you're blaming me for all this. It's all my fault."

"I am the damned director of NCIS, Agent Gibbs." She lurched forward again, nearly breaking free from his hold. "When I gave you an order, your only correct response should have been 'yes, ma'am.' Not some bullshit power-play like storming upstairs to sit at my desk. Not belittling my authority. Not questioning every single decision that I made." She shook her head, her hair flying. "Chauvinist, self-appointed messiah of NCIS, you couldn't even put your ego aside long enough to accept an award from my hands. So, yes, Gibbs. This is your fault." 

"Wow." Fornell stood, phone in his hand. "While I admire that she's kinda got you down cold, you never told me she was quite this delusional, Gibbs."

"Stay the hell out of this, Agent Fornell," Shepard snarled at him.

Fornell chuckled, ignored her, and then waved his phone towards the two. "Anything else you want to get on the record before we call them in?"

Gibbs felt Shepard's recoil. "No. We're done here."

"Call them in? Call who in?" Shepard demanded, jerking sharply to try to escape Gibbs' grip. "Be careful, Fornell. You don't know who you're playing with. I've got powerful friends," she nodded towards the dead man on the floor, "and you've just made a very powerful enemy."

The FBI agent's expression was so innocent that, if Gibbs didn't know him better, he'd wonder if butter would melt in his mouth. "Oh, dear. Poor little me. And you with Eli David in your back pocket. What ever shall I do?" Fornell narrowed his eyes and stared straight at her while he pressed a few buttons on his phone and raised it to his ear. "All clear. Yes, one dead, Shepard is in custody." He hung up and smiled. "I guess you're going to find out just how far your friendship with Mossad goes in about-" he looked down at his watch, "- 3, 2, 1."

Gibbs' unlocked front door opened and Tom Morrow strode inside, followed closely by the FBI Deputy Director and a powerfully built black man. Morrow's gaze flicked from corner to corner, taking it all in, measuring the dead man, the weapon, and Shepard in handcuffs in one glance. Lips pursed, he put both hands on his hips.

"Well, Leon, looks like you've got quite a clean-up job ahead of you."

Leon Vance met Gibbs' gaze with a nod before he stared down at the dead body. "Michael Rivkin. Mossad. Kidon. Word has it he was Ziva David's partner, being shaped to be Eli's right hand man." He raised his eyes to stare daggers at Shepard. "I'm up for the challenge, Tom."

Morrow nodded. "Good." He held up one hand, drawing the attention of every pair of eyes in the room. "No chatter. No slip-ups. This is need-to-know only and only I can decide if anyone else needs to know. Understood, gentlemen?" He reached out towards Fornell. "I'll take that phone, please, Agent Fornell."

The FBI agent hesitated, but slowly straightened his arm so that Morrow could pluck the phone from his hand.

Gibbs shifted, his nerves jangling, his gut screaming at him. "What about DiNozzo?"

Morrow slipped the phone into his pocket. "Are you telling me DiNozzo can't take care of himself, Gibbs? That he's not smart enough, or sharp enough, to make sure he takes Ziva down?" The Assistant Director of Homeland Security raised his eyebrows. "Do you still not trust your Senior Field Agent?"

Nostrils flaring, Gibbs shoved Shepard away from him so he could stalk towards the powerful men standing at the other side of his living room, in his house. "I trust him, Tom. But that doesn't mean I don't intend to have his back."

They stared at each other for a few minutes before Morrow finally nodded. "On your way, then. We'll take it from here."

Gibbs didn't bother closing the door behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

-13-

Tony let the sweeping curves of the memorial pull him gently forward, the dark green foliage on either side filtering the early morning sunlight so that only the softest rays fell on the names preserved on the stone. He held a bouquet of red roses loosely in one hand so that the thorns didn't bite as he walked the granite path, unable to stop himself from turning side to side, acknowledging every name, every fallen man and woman, every person who put himself between evil and the innocent.

The bronze lion on his right stared at him, searching for danger, for any scent of threat to those he'd been set to guard. Beneath his paw, poised on the edge of the low wall, was incised one of Tony's favorite quotes:

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are as bold as a lion."

Tony had never considered himself righteous. He wasn't a hero. He was just a guy with a badge and a gun, doing his job. Doing his best. He didn't get it right sometimes. A lot of times, depending on you who you asked. But he liked to think that he made a small difference. That, once in a while, he'd been the lion, putting himself between the criminal and the victim. The bullet and the mark. The black and the white.

Like Kate.

He hoped he would never forget that day on that rooftop. The sight of her throwing herself between Gibbs and the bullet. Unafraid. Unhesitating. He thought his heart would beat out of his chest when he saw her fall to the asphalt tiles. But he'd aimed. He'd fired. He and Gibbs had put down the shooter before they ran to her.

And then she'd opened those pretty eyes and smiled up at them. It was one of his favorite snapshots. And then, in the next moment she'd died with a laugh and a joke on her lips. That one haunted him. And always would.

Tony's steps slowed. They usually did when he reached this point. On the other side of this smooth curve, just across from the two bronze cubs playing on the grass, he'd find Kate's name. Two-thirds down the stone, right in the middle. His feet seemed to know he wasn't ready. Not yet. They'd give him a couple of extra seconds while he tightened his gut, smoothed his face into an expressionless mask, and remembered. Remembered a bony-elbowed sister. A partner. A friend.

A few months ago, a few weeks after Kate's death, he'd found himself here. May 15th. When the spring sunlight turned to the black of night. He'd stood beside strangers, tourists, visitors with cameras hung around their necks. Officers in perfectly pressed uniforms. Agents in cheap suits. The weight of memories hung around some like thick black cloaks, separating them from the whispering huddles of others. The black band across the shiny brass of his shield would stay there for a long time – not in fact, but in his heart. In his mind.

Tony had picked up a candle from the box. Touched it to another's flame as it passed by. He'd stood, shoulders straight, and listened. Listened as they read all the new names inscribed that year. Kate's name. It echoed in the silent night, hung there before him as he, and everyone else gathered there, paid homage to her sacrifice. Remembered her. Thanked her one last time.

As the others drifted away, he'd stayed. Another darker shadow between the trees. Tim had found him there. And then Gibbs. They didn't talk. Didn't speak. One look in the others' eyes was enough. And then they'd walked away. Separately. Their loss too sharp, too bright, to share in the mourning.

Finally, Tony rounded the last gentle curve and his eyes settled immediately on her name. He stopped. Turned. Eyes closed, he took a deep breath and let it out. And opened his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Kate." He smiled. "I know you'd hate this. This uproar. The confusion and doubt. You were always a black and white girl, weren't you?" Tony took one rose from the bouquet and laid it on top of the law wall, above her inscription. "This whole thing is a bit surreal. Like a Lynch film. Very Mulholland Drive." He twisted his voice to resemble that freaky cowboy standing under the cattle skull in Lynch's cult classic. "'Sometimes there's a buggy. How many drivers does a buggy have? Now, if you change your attitude, I might let you ride with me.'" He shook his head. "Someone is definitely driving this buggy, Katy, but I don't think it's me anymore."

"I know what you're going to say." Tony held up his right hand as if to stop her from interrupting. "Too many movies. Too many movie quotes. But this scenario – this situation –" he carefully enunciated the words, feeling each one in his mouth before he said it, "-it's very much like a film. Dark noir, maybe. Like Lynch. Blue Velvet. Lost Highway. You think it's going to be one thing and then, bam! You find you're being taken for a ride down a road you've never noticed before."

Tony brushed his hand down his face, definitely not wiping away any tears. He'd shed his tears for his partner. For Chris Pacci. Devon Smith from Baltimore. Anna Winthrop, the sweet-faced rookie in Peoria. So many more. He'd worn the black band across his shield far too many times. While sorrow – guilt – still waited for him sometimes when he was alone, behind doors that could lock out the world, today sorrow was not preeminent. Today another emotion had taken the lead.

Anger. 

He crouched down to lay his hand across her name. "Okay, I know. You wouldn't like that either. But, hey, pot calling the kettle black, you'd be a great one to remind me to not let my emotions influence the job. Not like you never did that."

With a sigh, Tony sat on the cold pathway, his back propped against the stone just beside Kate's name. His fellow officers wouldn't mind that he was leaning on them like so many others had in life. He drew up his knees and laid the rest of the flowers across them. The sky was clear, the few cars on the streets around him buffered by the trees, by the twisting layout of the memorial itself. He came here a little too often, maybe, to commune with the immortal soul of his dead partner. Knew the place like the back of his hand. On the busiest day in the District, it was quiet here.

He snorted. And what did it say about those he considered his closest friends if he'd rather sit here and talk to Kate than to confide in them? What did it say about Tony?

"It all went to crap when you died, Kate."

If she'd lived, if she hadn't been murdered, if she was still on the team, how many things would be different?

The team would have stopped Ari themselves, without any need for a dark-eyed predator perched at Kate's desk, watching their every move. Feeding bullshit to Gibbs while being spoon-fed personal Intel by the NCIS director she kept in her back pocket. Gibbs' red-headed ex preening herself atop the NCIS castle, her own agenda clutched tightly in her painted talons.

_"I hope you're not blaming me for that, DiNozzo."_

Tony heard her clearly. "No, Kate. Never." It wasn't her fault she'd been the Davids' target. No, of all of this mess, that made perfect sense. Her loss had changed everything. It had taken Gibbs down to that place of sorrow and guilt that would never heal. It had shaken Tim and Tony apart, left them fumbling to forge a friendship that didn't include her. And it offered an empty, aching place for Ziva, new daughter, new sister, new partner.

If it had been Tony – if Ari had put a bullet in Tony's head on that rooftop - it would have been completely different. They would have mourned, sure. Black bands across their shields. But Tony's loss wouldn't have wounded Gibbs so badly. It wouldn't have brought back shattered memories of his girls. It wouldn't have broken him, and broken the team.

It wouldn't have left room for- 

"Hello, Tony."

He didn't bother turning.

"Ziva."

Her shadow drifted across him as she came closer, chilling his skin. Of course she would approach from the east, putting Tony in the shadow while she would only be a dark shade against the sunlight. He'd felt her there, at his back, as soon as he sat down.

"You are wondering how I found you, yes?"

"Ha. No." Tony toyed with the bright red blossoms, smoothing the silky petals. "I'm sure Probie told you. Never could keep his mouth shut."

"McGee has been very helpful to me. To Mossad. He has made this mission as simple as a slice of pie."

The familiar teasing quality of her voice was as thin and sharp as a razor. It could cut him as easily as one of the many knives she kept close to hand. 

"Well, he's never had such a beautiful woman take an interest in him. Lean on him. You played him beautifully, I've got to hand it to you." He let his head rest against the low wall behind him, knowing all she'd see was the top of his head. She'd have to move closer to see his face. To look in his eyes. And she wouldn't be able to resist that. To watch him as her knife slid home. To smile into his eyes as she gutted him. Just another victim on the mean streets of the nation's capital.

"So I was told." Grass rustled beneath her feet. Her shadow grew to his left. "The Intel I collected on your team was extensive. But," she bit off the word, anger – frustration – coloring her superior tone, "you – have surprised me, Tony."

He watched a couple clutching raincoats close at the neck scurrying towards the Metro station. Late. In a hurry. People were always in a hurry in DC. As the two descended the escalator, they turned to each other and stole a kiss. It made him smile, easing the creases around his eyes, the tightness of his lips. "Didn't really know what to make of me, did you? Well, don't worry about it. Plenty of others have puzzled over the enigma that is Anthony DiNozzo, and many still do."

The derisive snort of laughter just over his right shoulder wasn't unexpected.

"You American men. You love to think of yourselves as so mysterious, your secrets so well hidden. It is laughable. All of you, you think you are James Bond when you are nothing more than little boys playing cowboys and Indians."

"Hey, now," Tony chided softly, "don't discount those games. I got my butt kicked by Penny Farthingsdale pretty regularly one summer camp. Those were the days," he murmured, plucking at the red blooms, letting a few petals fall to the ground like drops of blood. "Bruised and bloody from the battlefield, little Tony got all the attention he could ever hope for from the play nurses in the hospital tents."

His story spun around her, wound her in closer, tugged the deadly assassin in right behind the stone wall at his back. He could feel here there. She'd have a knife ready, in her hand. She'd be watching her surroundings just like he was, making sure there were no witnesses. No innocents that could be caught up in this contest. Not cowboys and Indians. Not James Bond and Goldfinger. It wasn't a Lynch film. This was the end. The end of one of them. Ziva wasn't playing.

Neither was he.

"I am sure you did. And now you have my attention, Tony. Just like you have always wanted."

Tony's hands clenched, crushing the blooms that were left. "I've never wanted your attention, Officer David. You're a miserable investigator. You and your family, they target people like Kate, good people, great people, especially compared to you. And then you come out here to remove another stumbling block to your little drama. You come out here to 'surprise' me. Trick Probie into giving up my location. And you didn't even do your homework."

"Oh? I think it is you who are far too smug, Agent DiNozzo. Who turns his back on an enemy? On one who has killed once, within NCIS itself this day? Who holds his life – his death – in her hand?"

He waited for the flash of sunlight on the blade. Waited for her sudden eruption of violence. Waited to see his reflection in the steel, the dead cold in his eyes, until it would be obvious to anyone looking that this began with her attack. Her strike. Not his.

Tony pushed against his heels, exploding backwards, throwing stems and blossoms over his head and into Ziva's face, aiming for her eyes. He threw himself back, over the wall, barreling into her stomach, head first, smiling when he heard her jaw slam closed with a loud crack.

He felt the knife score across chest as he went over backwards. He'd held off a little too long, maybe. Didn't matter. Now it was a fight to the death – they both knew it.

He'd remember it in snapshots later. More Polaroids to add to his collection. The deep slashes across her face from the thorns. The blood in her teeth from where she'd bit him. The angle of her leg when he broke her knee, kicking out from the ground. The second knife she'd aimed at his eyes; how it flashed through the air when he smashed it out of her hand. The red film that dropped over his gaze from where she'd caught him across the forehead.

One thing was for sure – Tony would never forget looking up at her where she knelt on his chest, both of them broken and bloody, as she pointed his own gun at his face. It felt like they stayed there – poised on the edge of his death, panting, shaking with rage, for a week – and that it was over in an instant. One shot. A perfect bullseye in the center of her forehead.

Just like Kate.

Breathe. Just breathe, he told himself. Tony drew in long gulps of air, eyes closed, tears leaking out of the corners. He couldn't stop them. Not now. Not here.

"Tony! My God, Tony!"

Tony managed to open his eyes. He owed Tim – his partner – that. Pale, wide-eyed, his mouth set in a deaths' head grimace, Tim crouched, leaning over him, fumbling his scarf against the blood on Tony's chest.

Tony patted his partner clumsily. "Good… good shot … Tim. I … I just want … to say … thanks for … having my back."

"Shut up. Shut up," Tim mumbled, voice and hands shaking. "Where the hell is the ambulance?"

"Hey … no need to … shout. I'm good. Really."

"Like hell you're good! Why did you wait so long to give the signal? She could have killed you, you idiot!"

Shaking his head – and he stopped that right away when the pain threatened to send him down that long tunnel into darkness – Tony watched other faces swim in and out of his vision. A blue jacketed EMT. A Metro cop. The cute couple from the escalators – FBI Agents Brewster and Figgens. More.

"She … she didn't even check. Didn't check that you … were calling from a different phone. Not yours." He laughed and then choked, spitting blood to the side. "Left yours at your apartment."

"Yes, Tony, your plan worked brilliantly. Now stop moving around and talking and let the paramedics work."

"Ah, 'brilliantly.' Don't think I'm going to let you … ow … forget you said that." He closed his eyes again. Too heavy. Much too heavy. Tired. Hurt. Loss. Another death. Another dead woman. He jerked his head up off the ground, fighting the pull of the darkness, of the deep well of sorrow reaching for him.

"Probie." He tried to shout, but it came out as a groan. Luckily, Tim was still there. Still kneeling beside him.

"Tony, please. Please. You're losing a lot of blood. I think your arm is broken. Whatever it is can wait-"

He latched onto Tim's jacket with his right hand, his grip leaving bloody smears on the leather. No. "No. Can't wait. Promise me – Tim," he shook the younger agent as hard as he could, spearing him with his stare, "you promise me."

Tim folded his hand over Tony's. "What, Tony? I promise. Whatever you need."

There he was. There was his partner. His Probie. Strong. Good. Honest. And a good liar when he needed to be. He'd believed Tony. Believed him over Ziva. Agreed to Tony's plan and then backed him up. He was a good man.

"And a damned good shot."

Gibbs leaned over the paramedic, silver hair shot to white in the sunlight. He might be able to read minds, but the man was no angel. "Good job, DiNozzo. McGee." He nodded. "Now shut up and –"

"No." Not this time. Tony ground his teeth together when the EMT touched his left arm. White hot pain grabbed at him, but he wouldn't shut up. He wouldn't lay back and do what he was told. "Done enough of that."

He didn't notice how Gibbs stared. How he backed up a step to give Tony and Tim a moment. Tony was fixed on Tim, on his promise. "Tim. Make them promise. She doesn't get her name on that monument. She doesn't – not with Kate." He wanted to pull Tim closer, to threaten, to cajole, to do anything to get his agreement.

Instead, he let Tim gently take his weakening hand, let him help the EMT's put him on a gurney. Watched from barely open eyes as Tim climbed in the ambulance beside him. Before he let himself go, he heard his partner whisper in his ear.

"Don't worry, Tony. We won't let them. Ziva doesn't get a monument. She just gets a body bag."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have played with the timeline a bit, to make sure Kate was included in that year's candlelight vigil at the NLEOM in Washington, DC. Take a moment to visit the site and look at the beautiful memorial. The quote and statuary does exist just as written. http://nleomf.com/


	14. Chapter 14

-14-

The slice across his pec had been superficial. Long, but shallow. Didn't even need stitches. Thank God. Tony smoothed his hand down his chest, feeling the bandages beneath his dress shirt. Wouldn't want a big ugly scar across his chest. Bad enough that they'd shaved half of it and now he looked like a bear that had been caught in a patch of duct tape. Ouch. 

No, most of the blood had come from a deep gash along his ribs that he hadn't even felt. Whether he'd caught the stone edge of the monument or the blade of one of Ziva's knives, he had no idea. Didn't really matter. That was the one they'd swept him into the ER to deal with. Too many layers of skin, too much blood to see properly, a couple of shards from his broken rib to dig out. Tony breathed in and out, slow and steady, feeling the pull of every stitch, the bandages wrapped tight round and round as if they were trying to keep his insides on the right side of his skin.

Tony stood in front of his desk, staring down at his chair as if he could intimidate it into becoming a comfy recliner, or one of those chairs old people used that had a lift in them to cradle his aching body as he was slowly lowered into its padded softness. Yeah. Not going there. Not without a damned good reason.

"Sit down before you fall down, Anthony." 

He was smiling at Ducky's tsking as soon as the he heard the elderly man behind him. "That's the thing, Ducky," Tony answered as the doctor appeared at his side, "I'm not sure that's really a choice."

"Hmm." Ducky gave him a once-over, up and down, narrowed those piercing blue eyes, and then settled for a firm grip on Tony's right elbow. "I see your point, my boy. I dearly wish that the new director had been willing to wait a few more days before requiring your presence. You need the time, physically and mentally. For heaven's sake, we all do."

The new director. Tony's stomach gurgled and he breathed through his mouth until it settled. He'd gotten his summons through an angry, frustrated McGee. Not that he'd been angry with Tony. No. Since the showdown at the memorial, since Ziva's attack and Tim's bullet, the Probie been stuck to Tony like one of those lampreys on a shark. Or, Tony rubbed two fingers against his aching temple, like a little brother latching onto his sibling. In the ambulance. At the hospital. Back at Tony's apartment where, doing anything one handed took black-ops-style planning and was about twenty times the work. It had worked out better than Tony could imagine.

Depending on the day, on the hour or minute, one of them could be strong for the other. Tony had needed help – and he wasn't ashamed to admit it – physically, while Tim needed some of that special DiNozzo magic to come to terms, mentally and emotionally, with what he'd done. Tony had had his brain wrapped around Ziva's betrayal before the fact. He'd never really trusted her. Was always looking for the catch, the real meaning behind her presence on the team, the truth behind her deflections, her games. He'd seen the violence hidden by a pretty face and clumsy speech all too clearly. And, no matter what Gibbs or Tim had said to themselves about the confrontation, Tony had known that only one of them would be walking away.

Tim – well, Tim had shot his partner. He'd killed a woman he had trusted. Someone who'd pretended to be a friend. He'd taken aim and deliberately made a choice. Tony or Ziva. Life or death. And he'd pulled the trigger.

Tony had heard him retching in the bathroom adjoining his hospital room. He'd seen the green cast to Tim's skin and felt the way his hands trembled while he held on to Tony. He couldn't do much for his partner at first, not with the pain meds and the nurses and the exhaustion that kept dragging at him. When Tony finally surfaced, mostly clear-headed and mobile, it was Abby at his side, with careful hugs and watery smiles and too much talking. He'd known where Tim was – making his report to Gibbs, probably to some much higher-ups. The nose-bleed section of the Defense Department. When Tim came back, Tony was careful to be his most annoyingly, frustratingly, whiny, pain in the ass needy persona until McGee snapped at him and they were back to normal. For the moment.

Tim's low level anger had erupted yesterday. He'd shown up at Tony's place just in time to give him a tongue-lashing about taking care of himself. The damned sling had been giving him fits, rubbing the back of his neck raw under his t-shirt so he'd taken it off and flung it across his bedroom sometime during the night. When Tim walked in, Tony was trying to fry a couple of eggs and some bacon, wincing every time he moved his left arm, or twisted just enough to pull at his healing wounds.

"What the hell is wrong with you, DiNozzo? I swear that you do not have the brains God gave a – a –" Tim, red-faced, stomping around like a pre-pubescent boy who'd had his X-Box taken away, waved his arms towards the living room. "A goldfish! Seriously. Kate the fish has more smarts than you do sometimes."

Tony had turned, spatula pointing towards Tim's chest, dripping grease on the kitchen floor. "Do not diss Fish-Katy, McGilligan. It's only a hairline fracture of the humerus. Not like it even needed a cast or anything-"

Tim had stomped closer, grabbing the spatula out of Tony's hand and throwing it in the sink. "It's a fracture, Tony. That means the bone is broken. And if you don't keep it at least in a sling, you might need surgery to repair the damage. Do you get that? Do you want more surgery?"

By then Tony could read the fear beneath the anger. The way Tim's eyes were shadowed, his skin sallow and sickly-looking. Not the time for more teasing. Not then. "No, Tim. I don't want more surgery. I just." He'd made himself still and quiet, standing braced against the counter so he could stay there a little longer without folding. So he could be the strong one. "I'm sorry. Maybe if you could help me get it back on after I clean up?"

He'd watched Tim reel in his emotions. Watched him draw back from the edge. "I will be happy to do that. Just. Let me finish this."

"In a minute," Tony had said, leaning to his right to keep them face to face. "Tim. What's going on?"

His partner's lips had thinned and his eyes blazed. "I'm sick and tired of people being stupid, that's what's going on. Ziva. Shepard. Sacks. Gibbs. You," he added sharply. "And now this new director, whoever he is, wants us all there tomorrow. At NCIS. For some announcement, as if we don't know exactly what they're going to say. How they're going to cover it up. And, you're not ready. No matter that you keep telling me you can't stay home any more, or that Gibbs would have been back to work that afternoon, and will you please just sit down?"

Tony had let Tim work out his anger, his fear for his partner. He'd let the younger man take care of him. Make sure he wore his sling. Took his meds. Rested. Ate right. This morning, Tim's hands were steady as he helped Tony get ready. His was expression set into concrete; his words monosyllables. Tony's mood had darkened with every gentle touch and clipped statement. Regardless of his own discomfort, okay, pain, nobody had the right to piss off his partner like this.

Not even this nameless, faceless new director.

Tony huffed a laugh and let himself lean on Ducky just a little bit. "Just please tell me he's not a red-head that Gibbs knew a little too well in the past."

The air in the bullpen turned to sludge in that well-remembered way and Tony rolled his eyes. "He's right behind me, isn't he?"

"And he's not alone!"

How the hell had Tony missed the clomp-clomp-clomp of Abby's platform boots? He winced as he turned too quickly. Yeah, maybe it was the pounding of his headache that had muffled the sound. A strong arm came around his shoulders, steadying him, just as a padded surface parked itself under his butt. Tony opened his eyes.

"I talked to Abby this morning about getting you something you could rest on. We came up with this."

Tony couldn't help but smile at how proud Tim seemed. Tim. Abby. Gibbs. Even Palmer – his whole team was there. And there was a black leather stool under his butt, just high enough so that he didn't have to bend to rest against it. With a padded backrest. Nice. "Wow. You guys." He sighed and let his eyes flutter closed. "Thanks. It's perfect." Stomach roiling, he snapped his eyes open when he felt himself moving, his right hand flailing for purchase.

It wasn't weird at all to find Gibbs' hand in his. "Hang on, DiNozzo."

"Abigail, I told you to warn the poor man before you began rolling him from place to place."

"Oh, Tony! Sorry! I'm sorry."

He groaned. "Room. Spinning," he muttered. "No more rolling, Abby." 

She was holding both hands to her chest as if afraid to touch him, her pigtails swaying back and forth as she shook her head. "No, Tony. No more rolling. Not until you say so."

They stared at him, each with a different level of concern. Abby, sweet little sis all worried but with a tiny spark of mischief peeking through. Palmer happily included. Tim, hovering mode still engaged. Ducky, perfectly poised, watching them all with eyes filled with wisdom and grandfatherly affection. 

And then there was one.

Gibbs.

Maybe he looked older. Maybe grayer. Maybe that chip on his shoulder had a chunk taken out of it. Or maybe Tony was looking at him through different eyes. Either way, Gibbs seemed changed.

"We've got a few minutes before the big show," Gibbs started, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smirk. He glanced at the others. "Give us a minute?"

"I don't think Anthony is in any shape for one of your elevator conversations, Jethro."

Gibbs nodded. "Yeah, I got that. Thanks, Duck."

They all hesitated, each one glancing at Gibbs as if he was Tony's new boyfriend and they were anxious to give him the shovel talk. It was kind of cute. And a little disturbing. Especially since they were still holding hands. Tony disengaged his rapidly numbing fingers and shooed them all away. "Gone on. Get out of here. Pretty yourselves up for the puppet show." When they still didn't move, he raised his voice and his eyebrows. "Seriously, people!"

Abby hugged him – carefully. Palmer waved. Ducky clucked his tongue and patted Tony on the knee. Only Tim was frustratingly immobile.

"You really okay, Tony?"

"I am really okay, Tim. Now, go keep Abby from the Caff-Pow. You know how she gets in these kinds of meetings if she's too wired."

They both shivered. No one would ever forget the epic All Hands Meeting of 2004.

When McGee finally disappeared down the stairs, Tony braced himself and met Gibbs' gaze. He was surprised to find himself calm. Ready. 

"'Puppet show,' DiNozzo?"

"You know it will be, Gibbs. Whoever this new director is will be repeating something the new SecNav and the Joint Chiefs want him to say. There will be spin. Lots and lots of spin. Good thing they got me a seat because I'll bet we're all going to get a little dizzy." Tony wished he could cross his arms over his chest. Wished he could stand up and look Gibbs right in the eye. Hell, Tony wished a lot of things that he wasn't going to get, why stop there?

"Publicly, I agree with you." Gibbs perched on the edge of Ziva's – _Kate's_ desk, minimizing the height difference. "The DOD is circling the wagons. Covering Davenport's tracks. He's already stepped down because of health reasons." The air quotes were understood. "Shepard's being held for questioning by the FBI. Fornell and the Deputy Director are in charge, reporting directly to the Joint Chiefs."

"Is she talking?" Tony bit the words off before he could say anything else. It must have been hard for Gibbs to take her down. To admit to himself that she was a venomous pit viper waiting to strike.

"She will be." Gibbs shifted, holding Tony's gaze. "She won't have a choice."

"No?" That was a little hard to believe. That the powers that be wouldn't trade Shepard's freedom for Intel on Mossad's intentions. For whatever she knew about Eli David and his plans.

"Eli David has been removed from office."

That – that was unexpected. 

"Turns out," Gibbs continued, "his own people were watching him. Letting him have enough rope to hang himself. When he sent his agent – Rivkin – here, it was against Mossad's direct orders. David had made his own connections, outside of Mossad's control – or so he thought. They've closed down his network. Were just waiting for the last of his players to fall before they tightened the noose."

"Ziva."

"Yep." Gibbs nodded.

Tony sighed, rubbing his sweaty palm against his thigh. "They are a cold-blooded bunch, aren't they?"

Gibbs didn't answer. Just looked at him. Watched him.

Tony didn't flinch away. He didn't ramble awkwardly to fill the silence. He was done with that. That act. That Tony DiNozzo. If this – this team, this leader-mentor-thing – was going to work, it would have to be different. On a more level playing field. Tony had told Gibbs he would still trust him, and that hadn't changed. But Tony had.

"Some would say what happened to you was pretty cold blooded, DiNozzo."

"'What _happened_ to me?'" Tony frowned. "The only thing that happened to me, Boss, was that a woman with more power than sense set me up to take a fall. Set you up, actually. Everything else was my choice."

Gibbs grunted, the intensity of his stare growing. "That how you see it?"

"Yes. That is how I see it." Okay, his tone was a little intense, too. Tony figured he deserved to let go of a little intensity right now. "I could have stepped back. I could have let it all go – the arrest, the booking, the … other stuff. Written it all off like a big ball of mistakes that just happened to explode all over me. Me and Abby." He leaned forward, ignoring the pull along his ribs, the throbbing against his skull. "If it had just been me, maybe I would have. But once I stepped into that lab, once I saw Sterling for who he was and knew the chain of command was swinging out of control, I didn't. I couldn't."

It was easy to remember that night. He'd been here, right here, leaning against his desk. A little less beaten. A little more angry. "Ten seconds," he murmured. If Shepard had arrived with the testimony ten seconds earlier. Before the anger could overwhelm Tony's exhaustion. Before the cold distance rose up and built that wall between him and the others. Before its iciness seared through his control, releasing the restraints he kept tied down tight over his inner demons.

"What?"

He lifted his eyes towards Gibbs. "If she'd brought you that testimony ten seconds sooner, it might have gone down that way. I'd have followed you downstairs, been relieved when Abby was safe and Sterling was caught. I'd have followed your lead and brushed it all off. Closed my eyes to Shepard's obvious manipulation and Ziva's tricks. I'd have clowned and laughed and joked and wondered why my team was fragmenting around me. Why Tim was nasty and you were dismissive and Ziva pulled and pushed, teased and then trashed me. Why she seemed so determined to belittle me. To separate me from the herd, if you will. Hell, I probably would have let her."

Tony took a steadying breath, meeting the fire in Gibbs' eyes with a cool green stare. The familiar cold was now a comfort. It wasn't sharp and unforgiving. It didn't bite and tear at him, flinging up barriers between Tony and everyone else. It was a reminder. A poke in the ribs by a pointy elbow. It told him to wake up, to pay attention, to stop talking and let his mind, his training, and the skills he'd almost forgotten he had come to the forefront.

It straightened his spine, kept him upright in the chair his teammates had thought enough of him to provide.

"I don't know how it would have played out, Gibbs. Maybe Shepard would have been found out another way. Another 'old friend' might have come out of the woodwork to get his pound of flesh from her. Maybe the CIA would have stepped in. Or maybe Ziva would have killed me. Or Tim. Or you. Been a second too slow on back-up. Slammed the truck into a cement barrier. Who knows?" The shrug was a mistake and he had to take a few seconds to breathe through the pain.

"All I know," Tony continued, quieter, calmer, "is that I would not have liked the guy I'd have to become to do that. The blind idiot. The clown. The guy whose hormones kept him from looking past Ziva's pretty package and into the darkness underneath." He frowned, watching the shadows rise and billow in Gibbs' eyes. "I'm sorry she's dead, Gibbs. But I'm sorrier that she and Shepard – and David – found a toe-hold here and forced this outcome." Tony set his chin an inch higher. "And I'm not sorry that I'm alive."

Gibbs' eyes cleared. "Me neither, DiNozzo."

Tony wasn't so sure about that. "Yeah? Not sorry that I didn't let it all go?"

The older man looked … older. His expression bleak, the creases across his forehead deeper, the set of his mouth tighter, Gibbs seemed every day of his age and then some. Now Tony saw what was different. What had changed. The flirtatious glint in Gibbs' eye every time he'd interacted with Jenny Shepard was gone. The fatherly fondness erased. With Shepard and Ziva gone, the man's tattered soul was on display. His eyes were looking forward now, into the future, not back into a dream of what might-have-beens. Tony had taken that. He'd torn away the gauzy masks that had turned two women into figments of Gibbs' imagination. A lover. A daughter. Reality lost to violence a long time ago.

Tony was pretty sure Gibbs would never thank him for that.

"Do I regret how it played out?" Gibbs shrugged and then shook his head. "Hell, yeah. And so do you."

Yeah. Tony would take that shot. That was fair. Harsh, but fair.

"Can't turn back the clock. Learned that a long time ago. But, if I could," Gibbs rose from his perch and closed the few steps between them, honesty and acceptance in every movement, every gesture, "I'd wish us all back to that rooftop. And I'd wish the bullet between Ari's eyes."

Gibbs held out his hand. An offer. An apology. A meeting of the minds.

Tony took it. Without a flinch. Without compunction. Without hesitation. "Finally, something we agree on, Boss."

"We agree on a hell of a lot more than that, DiNozzo. We may come at it from different directions, but we get there in the end." He held the handshake a long moment.

"Gotta take the long way around sometimes," Tony prompted, needing more. Just a little more.

"Especially when your Boss is acting like an iceberg, huh? Dense and unmoving? Freezing you out?"

The relieved sigh took Tony by surprise and he almost relaxed himself right off the stool. Good thing Gibbs was right there, at his side, strong and certain and there to lean on.

"You said it, Boss." Tony shot Gibbs a weary half-smile.

"New rule. Rule 51."

A shiver wriggled down Tony's spine. "Forties and fifties – those are always trouble."

Still hanging onto the handshake – if only to keep Tony on his seat - Gibbs raised his left hand. Not for a head-slap. Not this time. Probably not for a long time coming. Instead, he untwisted the strap of Tony's sling and tucked it back under his collar, off his neck. "Rule 51. Sometimes you're wrong."

"Sounds like one we both might need." Tony closed his eyes. Swept out the black and white photographs into a fan in his mind's eye. Ziva sitting at Kate's desk. Half-lidded eyes that never hid her intent. Her threat. McGee beaming at Tony's seeming jealousy. Shepard descending the steps with that smirk on her lips. Leaning into Gibbs shoulder. Sacks shoving Tony into the public holding cell. He gathered up the snapshots, setting Sacks' to one side, shuffled them, and placed them back in their storage box. And closed the lid.

The warm hand on his shoulder opened his eyes to Gibbs' concerned face.

"Tim was right. You're not ready for this. You should be –"

Tony rose, unfolded himself from the stool, and turned to face his Boss. "DiNozzos are born ready, Boss. Whatever this new director has on his mind, I want to hear it."

Gibbs stared. Considered. Weighed Tony against his own personal measure. This time, Tony didn't doubt himself. Didn't stammer an explanation. Didn't take back his own insight or pretend inadequacy. He met that flat blue stare and found the warmth beneath it. Found acceptance. And respect.

Gibbs nodded. "Good. And, DiNozzo," he turned back after taking a few steps towards the elevator, "Director Leon Vance? Definitely not my type."

"I will take that under advisement. But, until I see him for myself, I'm going to dread Paris flashbacks."

The elevator doors opened as they reached them, revealing Tom Morrow and a wide-shouldered, stocky black man in a very good suit with a deadly gleam in his eye.

Tony leaned towards Gibbs and stage whispered. "Never mind, Boss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so grateful for your comments, kudos, and feedback! Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey. Hopefully, only one chapter to go!


	15. Chapter 15

-15-

Tony hadn't been wrong. The public meeting was scripted drama at its best. Standing on the upper landing, facing the entire sum of the DC office, Tom Morrow, Assistant Director of Homeland Security and Leon Vance, newly instated Director of NCIS – joined by the Chief of Naval Operations and FBI Deputy Director Plantis – danced their dance of double-speak and innuendo, thanked each other for their loyalty and unswerving patriotism, and explained without explaining how they'd worked together to eliminate a threat to US security, and how former Director Shepard would be 'assisting with the investigation' for the foreseeable future. Puppets and puppeteers, both. The strings were wound too tight for Tony to see where they began or ended, but he felt them tugging at him, at Gibbs, at every person gathered in the cheap seats in the bullpen.

Morrow's speech, made in that controlled, I'm-in-charge-and-aren't-you-glad tone was magic. Tony tuned out about ten minutes in, drained, done, unable to keep craning his neck to watch the show. He was glad the team had drifted back towards the wall, away from their desks, from front and center, Tim and Palmer and Ducky and the others huddling in a protective arc around Tony's seat on the comfy stool set right up against the bright orange Wall of Shame. Tony had always liked the back row. Movie theater or classroom, he'd rather sit at the back, away from scrutiny, where he could fidget or pass notes or let his mind wander without any threat of discovery. Where Abby could hold his hand, or McGee could catch his eye and share a sigh. 

And this? This was theater. Too bad no one had thought to make popcorn.

Tony rubbed at his forehead, curling just a bit forward on his perch, the aches and pains clamoring louder and louder for his attention. When he dropped his hand back to his lap, he kept his eyes down, unwilling to keep up the facade that he was paying any attention to the powers that be. He knew everything he needed to know – had heard it all after Morrow and Vance stepped off the elevator earlier. He'd seen Morrow's casual inspection. Vance's barely camouflaged glare. One on Tony's side, one firmly against. Tony had always been bad at math, but even he could add that up and realize his future at NCIS might be zero.

Morrow had smiled and ushered the four of them into a conference room - the same one, Tony realized with a start, that Tony had used to get this giant snowball rolling just a week ago. Not a coincidence. He'd caught Gibbs' eye, sharing a moment of understanding at the sight of the empty bracket on the ceiling tile where the security camera used to be. Off the record then. That was just fine with Tony – no masks, no carefully diplomatic double-talk. He didn't have the patience left to deal with that right now.

"Agent DiNozzo." Morrow had shaken Tony's hand with what seemed like genuine regard, like they'd been equals rather than Director and Agent Black-Sheep. "Thank you. If you hadn't made it your business to get to the bottom of this situation, we might be looking at a much greater fallout than we are. Shepard was in a position to do a lot of harm to our agency, the country's security, and, not least of all, our international standing. From the Joint Chiefs, to the Marine and Navy Chiefs, you have our thanks."

Beside him, Tony felt Gibbs stiffen. "Behind closed doors only, though, right Tom?"

Morrow's half-smile had been honest. "I can't believe either of you is surprised by this. That we're not actually going to come out and say as much in front of press cameras or our colleagues in the intelligence community."

"No, sir. Not surprised," Gibbs had answered quietly. "Disappointed, but not surprised."

Tony had shrugged. "Not like you're a big believer in rewards or thanks, Gibbs. 'Just doing my job,' isn't that your line?" Tony had made the appearances, awkwardly offered words of gratitude, and picked up enough medals and kudos for his Boss over the years to know. "I don't need thanks, Assistant Director Morrow. Not why I did this." It had rankled to know Gibbs still thought so little of Tony to believe he'd wanted the damned thanks in the first place.

"I realize that, Tony. But, it still needs to be said." Morrow frowned, gesturing Tony to a chair. "Shepard maneuvered you into the line of fire and Doctor Mallard tells me that you took more than a little damage." When Tony waved him off and settled his hip against the table, Morrow moved on. "As you may have guessed, things are going to change around here. Most obviously – and most importantly to NCIS - with Shepard's removal and Director Vance's immediate advancement."

Leon Vance. Tony hadn't had much of a chance to dig up information on the West Coast agent. Married. Two kids. He was more than a little interested in the cyber side of things – technology, gadgets, science and programming. Abby and Tim would be well served by the new director. That was a good thing. Tony? Gibbs? Well, if Tony had limited expectations who could blame him?

Tony's shallow investigation into all things Vance had hit a few roadblocks. Back in the NIS days, in an earlier time with a more fragile relationship between the US and the Soviets, Iran and Iraq, there had been black ops, wet-work, and assignments that had to be folded up and stuffed into a black hole when they were finished. Gibbs had been involved in more than a few of those. Shepard, too. This man, perfectly polished exterior with eyes that gleamed like cold fire, had seen his share, too.

It had been Vance's friendship with Eli David that had turned Tony's stomach and tightened down his armor.

"Forgive me some blunt speaking, Director," Tony began, his muscles tense, throat aching with the need to question, to interrogate, to find out what the hell was going on before he stepped – or was pushed – over the edge again, "hopefully you can chalk it up to pain meds, exhaustion, and being not the least bit interested in any more bullshit if it offends you, but aren't we trading one of Eli David's people for another?"

Vance bristled. Tony felt Gibbs' shoulder press against his, but at this point Tony really had no idea if it was out of support or as a warning. Morrow didn't react at all.

"You've got a lot of nerve …" Vance began, chin coming up, shoulders braced as if he was a fighter ready to muscle in on an opponent.

"Leon's ties to the David family have been severed – cleanly. On that you have my word, Agent DiNozzo." Morrow placed a restraining hand on Vance's arm. "I hope you and Agent Gibbs can still trust my word."

Tony's eyes narrowed, but the knots in his stomach began to unwind. Yes. Damn it. It was Morrow asking. The one man who had always held Tony's trust. Since day one, when shiny and new Agent DiNozzo was gobbling up the tiny morsels Gibbs dropped like a confused puppy, Morrow had been there. Strong. Stable. Sincere. Willing to open his mouth, explain, and even praise a bitter ex-cop who had been thrown in the deep end at the federal agency. 

"You, sir? Yeah, we trust you."

For once, Gibbs speaking for him didn't bother Tony. What was even better was that Morrow waited, holding Tony's gaze, until he acknowledged him, communicating his own agreement.

"Thank you. That is a compliment coming from you two. Especially now." Morrow stood a little straighter. "I will not let you down."

Yep, the man could even make that sound sincere. Tony eyed Vance and the throbbing vein on the man's forehead. Too bad the new director looked more like he wanted to be the first to shake Tony's hand and then tear it off at the wrist and beat him to death with it. Tony forced himself to his feet, to own every inch of his superior height over this man. He forced the control and long-limbed grace that would have been so easy two weeks ago, ignoring the burn of torn muscles and the pull of stitches. He took the two steps that separated him from Vance, raised his eyebrows, and demanded the man's attention.

"You have something to say to me… Director?"

"Leon –" Morrow tried to intervene with his Brooks Brothers' suave and his flawless confidence, but Tony didn't pull back and Vance didn't either. 

"You want to do this, DiNozzo? Fine. Let's do this," Vance pressed closer, all wide shoulders and intimidation.

Tony smiled.

"You want to know why I called in a lawyer. Why I went wide, went public, instead of taking care of this in-house. Why I made a big stink in the intelligence circles, where NCIS is already considered the tag-along little brother." Tony's voice was low, teasing, and oh-so sure. He made certain it would feel like salt on the raw wounds Vance must be harboring in his thin, bureaucratic skin.

"A big stink? You made a mess, Agent DiNozzo. You made a mess out of protocol and procedure and left it for someone else to clean up. Is that the way you do things in DC, because, I've got to tell you, I won't have it. Not in my agency."

Tony reeled back, big and dramatic, one arm swinging wide. "Your agency? Your agency, Leon?" he laughed. "Oh, I see. This is going to be another personal empire. A petty king sitting at the top of a castle made of red tape and ass-kissing. Great. Because that worked so well before." Tony stuck his finger into Vance's chest, hoping to poke a hole and let some of the hot air escape. "When are you people going to learn that it's the agents that make this organization work? That the suits and offices, the intricate little webs of power and prestige are nothing – absolutely nothing – without the day in and day out grunt work of people like me and Gibbs, Tim McGee and Rick Balboa. Grant and Perkins and Tobin and Gomez." He wiggled his fingers in Vance's reddening face. "Your meetings on the hill and lunches with SecNav, your phone calls and freaking gift basket exchanges with people like Eli David and Russia's Zucharov don't do a thing to protect the men and women who serve on the front lines here and abroad every single day." Headache pounding, his side burning, Tony shook with all of the pent up rage and guilt and sorrow that had been driving him since this began. "I don't know how you feel, but, personally, I don't think it's the Director's job to pursue personal vendettas or collect kudos. It's his job to help us help the military families we are sworn to serve. To have our backs. And to call in the big guns when we need them. But, hey, that's just me."

His head was light, balloon-like. It might just float away before Director Eyebrows could knock it off. Too bad. Tony shifted his weight so it didn't look like he was a man at the end of his rope, about to drop. Tired. So very tired of just about everything.

Vance advanced, eyes narrowed. "You want me to have your back, DiNozzo? You want me to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the trenches and take the hits?"

"That'd be real nice for a change," Tony shot back.

"To watch out for the agents under my command and make sure they can do their jobs safely?"

"Yes." Yes. Like Morrow. Like a real leader for a damned change.

Vance moved in, forcing Tony backwards toward the table, his aura of power radiating out from him like a rush of steam.

"And the agents' responsibilities, what are those? To grandstand? To go off half-cocked with their own agendas, those same personal vendettas you'd deny me, never caring about the fallout for their partners or the other agents around them?"

"No, damn it! That is not what I did!" Tony pushed back, his voice rising with his hackles. "I called in help. I took the steps I needed to take to expose Shepard and David, to make people like you see the danger those two presented when I couldn't trust anyone – _anyone_ – to do it for me!"

Vance rolled his eyes and scoffed. "You called in help."

Tony was beyond anger. Beyond rage. He jerked out of Gibbs' gentle hold on his shoulder, the white-hot pain in his broken arm only fueling his fire. "Yes. I called in help."  
"Bullshit!" Vance barked. "You set yourself up in a public place with civilians around you to draw David out. You called your own selfish shots, put a target on your back, and made someone else take the kill shot!"

"I didn't – you – are you brain dead or just blind?" Frustration mounting, Tony hit Vance in the chest with the side of his balled up fist, barely making the man step back and sending a jolt of pain up his arm to sear across his chest. "Do you have any idea where the Law Enforcement Memorial is or, like every other West Coaster, does your knowledge of geography end at the Washington Monument? For your information," Tony continued, as snide and nasty as he could be, "that park is across the street from the Washington Field Office of the FBI, where Agent McGee and an entire team of Fibbies were waiting." He threw up his arm, not caring that it took Gibbs' hold to keep him upright. "There was a sniper on the roof. The entire city block had been cleared of civilians. I did not grandstand, you ass, I set in motion a very controlled, very well-thought-out operation to bring down a dangerous assassin and mole." 

Heart drumming, the pain sent a staccato rhythm through Tony's body and down his limbs, shaking him, cranking the headache to eleven and darkening his vision around the edges. He closed his eyes, the sound of his own voice quaking and weak making him livid. "I was safer there among the honored dead than I have been for months sitting here with David supposedly watching my back." Tony stopped, panting, and tried to catch his breath and hold onto his control so he wouldn't punch Vance in his bright shiny teeth. He opened his eyes. "I was safer there than I was every time Shepard strolled down the stairs. And much safer than I was in FBI custody – where she put me."

"Oh, you think you were, do you?" Vance shot back.

"You're damn well right I was!"

"And do you know what that kind of thinking tells me, Agent DiNozzo?"

"What?"

The fire in Vance's eye flared. "That you're a much better agent than you appear to be," he snapped. "That too many people have been underestimating you and holding you back from becoming a top asset for this organization." That chin came up again, but this time Vance stepped back, smoothing one hand down across his tie and coat as if their shouting match had ended in a brawl. "After hearing your name around the West Coast offices, I was not impressed. Flighty. Shallow. A big grin and not much else. A throw-back to the personality cult NIS had become once upon a time, where leaders raised up apprentices like the knights errant of old, multiplying both the leader's strengths and his weaknesses over the years." He nodded over Tony's shoulder towards Gibbs. "Agent Gibbs is good, but he's no superhero, DiNozzo. I trust you've figured this out now."

Tony's body leaned more heavily against Gibbs' hand, his mouth open, eyes blinking in confusion. His mind was quicker, sharper, thank God, grabbing up Vance's words and shuffling out the photographs that Tony had always kept closest to his heart. Gibbs in that alley in Baltimore. His hand reaching out for Tony's. Standing before the screen in MTAC, head and shoulders above everyone else. Gibbs' calm in a firefight. His hand on Tony's head in a blue-lit room at Bethesda. Standing tall at Kate's funeral.

Gibbs watching Mike Franks with a half-smile and a wisp of hunger. For a scrap of praise. For the look that told Gibbs, Franks' Probie even after all these years, that he'd done well. That Franks was proud. 

Tony turned, pulling back from Gibbs' steady grip. He frowned at his Boss, at the weary agreement in the older man's eyes. "Yeah. I guess I have." And, strangely, that seemed okay with Gibbs. Maybe he was a little tired of teetering on that pedestal. 

Vance wasn't finished. "After I was read-in on this … situation … and had time to actually sit down and go through your file, Agent DiNozzo, I'm pleasantly surprised." His gaze rose to blaze over Tony's shoulder and pin Gibbs in place. "I am not happy with the way your input and insights have been handled in the past, however. Nor your blind devotion." Vance nodded at Tony. "I am happy to see that is changing because, believe me, the MCRT will be changing under my leadership."

Too much. This was too much. Too weird and too strange and not at all what Tony had been squaring his shoulders to meet. One revelation per day was his limit. Now, along with the fact that Gibbs wasn't perfect, that the new administration might not be as likely to turn a blind eye to the man's tendency to flout the law, Vance was telling Tony there was more to come. He wanted to shake his head, but knowing his luck, the thing would fly off and land with a thud in the potted plant near the window.

"What?" Tony closed his eyes. Brilliant response there, DiNozzo, he told himself.

Morrow must have thought Vance had had enough time to get his point across. One glance at his watch and he was picking up the pace of this bizarre meeting. 

"The NCIS MCRT is being reorganized. The world has gotten bigger and has brought with it more threats to our Homeland as well as to our military men and women around the world. If we don't change, we'll be caught flat-footed." Morrow crossed his arms. "We need to be team players, here and with our sister agencies. We need both Gibbs' solid experience and DiNozzo's out-of-the-box insights. Agent McGee and Miss Sciuto's technological skills are key. We'll also be adding an expert in terrorism and profiling to the team."

Tony felt Gibbs move, the unconscious defensiveness against an 'outsider' telling him how to run his team. He waited for the flare-up, the ugly remarks, the pointed response about taking his badge and shoving it where the sun didn’t shine.

They never came.

"This team," Vance continued at Morrow's quick gesture, "will consist of two leaders – DiNozzo and Gibbs. Partners. With equal standing to decide case management, split up duties, and prioritize caseloads. If there's a problem, a disagreement, the case will be removed from the MCRT and handed off to another team. Because," Vance's voice became smooth and dark, like caramel heavily salted with cayenne pepper, "I will not have this unit bogged down with egotism, with alpha-dog mentality, or with pissing contests. Grow up. Work together. Remember that, as Agent DiNozzo so clearly said, this is not about you or me, agents, it is about our military and our country. And if you can't serve them, then you can both get the hell out."

Tony examined his hands, turning them slowly back and forth as Morrow's even cadence drifted over him from the balcony. Morrow. Vance. The shiny new SecNav. They'd put the team in Tony's hands. Put his hand into partnership with Gibbs'. And Gibbs had embraced it. Agreed. Put a hand on Tony's shoulder and honestly, openly, told him he'd be honored.

He still didn't half-believe it. Maybe he was dreaming. Unconscious in a hospital bed. Maybe he'd imagined it all, from Tim's care and compassion, to Vance's praise, to Gibbs' professional, thoughtful acceptance. Tony breathed deep and felt each ache, each bruise, the sear of torn skin and the pull of stitches. The bright white pain of a broken bone. He remembered Ziva's dark, soulless gaze as she sat on his chest and pointed a gun at him, her intention to kill him as clear as day. And then he remembered the surprise, the shock, as a single black hole rimmed with red appeared in her forehead before she fell.

Not a dream, then. Dreams were supposed to be pleasant. Warm. Filled with good memories, snapshots of friends and family that expanded into life, into laughter. Not a nightmare either. Nightmares were cold and sharp. In his nightmare, Shepard would have Gibbs in her back pocket; Ziva would have won. And the powers that be wouldn't be standing up there talking about reorganization. About teamwork. About the new MCRT.

People wouldn't be clapping and smiling at him.

Tony managed to sit up, to nod, and to answer shocked gazes with a rueful pull of his lips that might or might not be a grin. On his right, Gibbs stood unmoving, cup of coffee in one hand, acknowledging nothing. Situation normal.

As the curtain came down and the crowd drifted away, Steve Adler made his way through the throng to Tony's side. 

"You look terrible, Sex Machine."

Tony had bared his teeth at the other man and whispered back. "You, however, look proud as a new baby daddy." Adler was shiny and polished, every hair in place, damn him. His face had shone from every television in the DMV lately, every morning show host now on his speed dial. Tony couldn't fault him – he'd done what Tony asked. Set the fox among the chickens. He'd asked the questions out loud where everybody could hear them forcing the higher ups to demand their own answers. "Thanks, Steve."

One hand rested between Tony's shoulder blades as the lawyer leaned in. "Thank you, Tony. And," his smug expression turned honest for a moment, his voice losing the polish and gloss his success had given him, "I'm glad you called me. And not just because you made my career." Brown eyes met Tony's green, a hint of that old, dead friendship gleaming there. "Because it gave me a chance to do something right. Something good." Adler hesitated, frowning. "I want you to keep my number. This isn't over." He shrugged. "I worry."

And didn't that strike Tony DiNozzo speechless? Maybe the team's sacrifice had bought back another soul from hell. Given another man something to think about – a chance to open his eyes, look around, and weigh his life choices. Tony stuck out his hand and let Steve grasp it, their eyes locked, before the man faded back into the crowd.

Looked like even Adler had had enough of the limelight.

Finally, well-wishers and hangers-on were gone. Balboa had given Gibbs the eye and, apparently, decided the functional mute could be trusted with Tony's six. Ducky had gotten Tony's promise to let someone drive him home to rest. Abby had kissed him on the cheek and wandered off, mumbling ways to put Tony's and Gibbs' names together. Team Tibbs seemed to be the frontrunner. McGee was a fan of GiNozzo. Tony had a headache. And a gun. Of which he reminded everyone.

"Ready to get out of here?"

"Oh, yes, please and thank you," Tony breathed in response, letting Gibbs steady his elbow as he seemed to crawl to his feet. 

The trip to the parking garage was long and slow and laden with landmines in the form of their co-workers. Ducky with Tony's meds he'd 'forgotten' at his desk. Palmer with a heating pad. Abby with another hug. McGee with the promise of Tony's favorite Thai for dinner.

Finally tucked into the passenger's seat of Gibbs' car, Tony sighed and let the leather upholstery cradle him. His moan might have been a little too deep, a little too long, leading to Gibbs' quick chuckle as he pulled into traffic.

Tony turned his head, his cheek flat against the headrest. He watched his Boss maneuver through District traffic, smooth and steady and without any of his usual breakneck speed or road-rage inducing stunts.

"Yes, DiNozzo. I'm fine with this. I think it's a good idea." Sports-coat-covered shoulders lifted and lowered. "We've worked as a two-man team before. It was good."

"It was," Tony murmured in response. "But you won't get to boss me around anymore, Boss. I think I'm kinda going to miss that."

"You think our partnership is going to keep me from bossing you around sometimes?"

Tony considered. "Yeah, no. But this promotion means I get to boss you around, too. Right?"

"Right. Just remember: old dog, new tricks. Might take me a while to wrap my head around it."

True. But, if anyone could do it, Gibbs could. Once he set his mind to something, the man was relentless. And, oddly enough, it seemed Gibbs was on board with these changes. With Tony's promotion. With the idea of a partnership. With change.

"It's going to quite a ride, Tony."

Tony smiled, his eyes drifting closed. "As long as we get there in one piece in the end, Gibbs."

He heard the humor in his Boss's – his partner's – voice. "We'll both see to that."

"We will."

\- - - - - - - -

_Two weeks later_

"Hey, Tony, did you see this?"

Tony looked up from the open file on his desk to raise his eyebrows at McGee. The younger man stood, grinning, and grabbed the remote for the plasma before planting himself in front of it, his eagerness urging Tony to his feet to join him.

With a click - and a Tim McGee snort - the plasma dissolved from its usual blankness to show a disheveled Ron Sacks being hauled from a paddy wagon crowded with scantily clad women of obvious bad taste and shouting, gold-chain wearing pimps, and then man-handled by two huge Baltimore cops through a throng of reporters to a city lock-up.

"Oh, dear. What has our friend Ronny been up to, now?" Tony quipped.

the desk that stood up against Tony's, Gibbs rose to peer over his half-glasses. "Is that Sacks?"

"Yup. It seems our least favorite FBI agent was caught up in a drug sting at a local strip joint in Baltimore."

Tony tsked. "You'd think an up-and-comer like Sacks would have known not to spend his off-hours in a scummy little dive like that."

Tim turned to face him, his expression as bland as buttermilk. "He claims to have gotten a tip to meet an informant there. But, when the cops busted in, they found him with two girls on his lap, his zipper down, and a pile of coke and money on the table, his prints all over everything."

The three men shook their heads watching the footage with barely concealed glee. As the former agent was pushed through the glass doors, one of the Baltimore officers turned, grinned right into the nearest camera, and offered a two-fingered salute.

Tony couldn't help returning it. "That makes us even, Stornelli," he murmured.

"Well," Tony clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Enough frivolity. Back to work, Timmy. You get those financial records on our petty officer yet?"

"Printing out now," Tim answered, hurrying towards the printer.

Gibbs lifted his chin at the tall, dark-haired woman rushing towards them, a file in one hand and her phone up to her ear with the other. "Looks like Prentiss has something."

Tony grabbed his jacket, checked his weapon and tucked it into his shoulder holster, and gathered Gibbs, Tim, and their new teammate with his eyes. "Let's go."

"On your six," Gibbs answered, hurrying after him.

-End-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks - and apologies - for everyone following this story! This last ten days has been full of illness, family emergencies, and a mom in the ICU. I am so sorry the last chapter took so long to get loaded, and I hope you'll forgive me. I am truly blessed by all of your comments, bookmarks, and follows and forever grateful for this NCIS fandom that embraced me. Thank you again for your patience. Your comments, as always, truly inspire and warm my heart.


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